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Amaug the willorisrs , wKose loujf . "bsan&es tt;; 
Lite, weeping Anfel?: liarr —" ' 






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AND 



T[Mli[^ PQ Em 

BY 

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" Mo'her, it was for thee I toiled— I shall return 
Witli health's clear bcamii g eyes lo thy fond arms, — 
Hope's iolden string has tuned my swelling soul. 
Ambition lights her torch, and Phcenix like, 
Eo irs from the ashes of ill fortune's urn !"— Gest. op Lvonjs. 



NEW YORK; 

L. STICKNEY, 140 FULTON STREET, 
Second Floor. 

J. C. WADLEIGH, 459 BROADWAY. 

18 13. 

U 



.673 



51268 






W. B. & T. SMITH, PRINT. 

89 Nassau Street. 




TO ELEAZER PARMLY, 



AND 



SAMUEL W. PARMLY, 

THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, 

BY THEIR SINCERE FRIEND, 

THE AUTHOR. 






DKlV@©^TO©[K]a 



The harp hath but a passing straia, 

And wakens o'er life's sea, 
The murmuring that shall die again, 

And loose it melody — 
The bird hath sung on summer-bough, 

In wood, and festal bower, 
Though mule its lips of music now, 

Which charmed us for an hour: 
Yet, to the heart that harp-strain went. 

That sweet bird's pleasant song, 
And low within our bosoms pent. 

Their memories ever throng. 
We bl^ss the harp, we bless the bird. 

For each soft thrill they woke. 
And all our holier feelings stirred, 

Their fading spells invoke I 
It was a gentle song, they sang, 

As morn peeped through her bars, 
And soft as seraph's music, rang 

Beneath the evening stars — 



INVOCATION. 

The trembling soul must echo it, 

Though other lips have thrilled ; 
It was the deep unspoken song, 

That all our spirits filled. 
O, if my lay shall charm one heart. 

As harp and bird hath done, 
My toil has finished well its part, 

My fondest dream is won ! 
The sun and shade, the hope and fear, 

The faith and doubt were mine ; 
From these I wove with many a tear, 

The garland at the shrine — 
My guerdon but the morning air, 

And yon sweet star above, 
Which beams upon the soul's despair, 

With all the light of love: 
Thanks, to the lips which bade me sing, 

The kind, the good, the true ; 
To them, to all, the harp I bring, 

And bid them here adieu ! 
Tears unto those who sit in tears. 
And smiles to smiles are given ; 
Through tears and smiles in coming years, 
I strive aa I have striven. 




©©MTIKIT 



Ianthe, ...,...•. 9 

Artist's Prayer, 26 

Do-Hum-Me, , . 33 

Ponce De Leon, 36 

Christ, 48 

Greenwood, 58 

Napoleon, 62 

Prometheus, 1 . 74 

Horicon, ......... 80 

Evening, a Hymn, 86 

Wa-Con-Tam-Ee, 103 

England, 114 

Lelia, ....:.... 119 

The Marble Bride, • . 146 

The Ruined One, 150 

As It Is, 154 

Henry Inmani 165 

To a Picture, . 168 

M'Donald Clarke, 170 

To My Mother, . . . ^ 173 

Myra, 175 



8 CONTENTS. 

Bryant, 177 

From Nina, . . • 178 

To Nina, 180 

Ella, 182 

Death, . • 184 

From Nina, . • 185 

To Nina, 187 

EstcUe 188 

Song of Beauty, .•...•.. 190 

Death of C banning, 191 

Light, 193 

Odd-Fellowship, 195 

Robert Emmet, 197 

Dawn, 198 

Erin, 201 

Ticonderoga, 203 

The Battle Ship, 205 

Vermont, 207 

Lake Champlain, 209 

Columbia's Pine, 210 

Lowly Places, 212 

My Native land, 214 

Washington AUston, . • 216 

Man, 217 

The Poet's Death, 219 

Isadore, 223 

The Kiss, .... ... 224 



AMTIKl 



There is a tongue mysteriously given 
To soothe the pilgrim in his hours of wo, 

A gentle breathing from the spirit heaven 

Which fans the tear from every cheek below ; 

A sun of brightness which makes ripe the soul, 

And fits it for its temple and its goal. 

There is a language of the thrilling eyes, 
A gentle pleading of the heaving breast, 

A soft persuasion in the smothered sighs 

From out young hearts by the adoring prest ; 

In all, a magic strengthened by desire, 

Which fills the soul with an extatic fire. 

It is the voice of waving curls, and lips. 

And cheeks that tempt us with delicious blushes, 

So fair that every wind full wanton sips 

The purple stream, that in its channel gushes 

Below that brow of marble, which alone 

Were worthy to be called a fairy's throne. 
1 



JO POEMS. 

It is the bond of spirits speaking through 
The crystal windows of the human soul, 

A language silent, but so faultless true, 
That they who read resist not its control ; 

It is the perfect of that inner being. 

Too fine for aught but sympathy's fine seeing. 

Such was the language of lanthe, when 
Oft in summer's wavy woods we met, 

'Neath the green cypress of the shady glen 
By the sweet breathing of a fountain wet ; 

And swiftly flew the winged hours away. 

Scarce chiding us as 'mid the flowers we lay. 

Our life was but a vision undefiled. 

An endless gaze of fond consuming eyes ; 

I looked on her, and she returning smiled — 
So archly on her lip it played, as rise 

The tiny waves of the half tranquil sea. 

Speaking a power of hidden strength to me. 

Ours was a mutual love, and it became 

From childhood stronger as we upward grew, 

Until from warmth, it kindled to a flame 
Of holy trusting, fate would scare undo, 

Unless she dared to peril souls allied 

By links too sacred ever to divide. 



POEMS. 11 

I sickened once, and grew so wan and weak, 
That death already hovered at the door, 

O how she clung around to gently speak. 
To fan my fevered brow, and o'er 

My aching body like an angel form 

To stand, a bow above a darkling storm. 

O had I hated woman till that hour, 
lanthe would have conquered ; I arose. 

And from the time I left that couch, a power, 
I knew not whence it came, a power that goes 

More swift than lightning to the mystic part, 

Like a strong giant chained my trembling heart. 

Then love became intensity ! a fire 
Like molten lava fed upon the strings 

Of my swoln heart, and all desire 

Of every kind, fell merged into the springs 

Of that wild passion, whose mysterious sway, 

The saint and savage must alike obey. 

We vowed by many a glimpse of the pale moon, 
And sealed our vows with an enraptur'd kiss, 

And prayed the long expected day would soon 
Come on and consummate our bliss ; 

For why should two fond hearts delay to dwell 

Within the circle of that wondrous spell f 



12 POEMS. 

Thus ran the hours, so swiftly, they did seem 
Like ocean waves that kiss the blushing sands. 

Or winds that play where rosy couches gleam 
And toss the flowers upon their spicy hands ; 

We cared not for their passing, she, nor I ; 

True lovers care not how the moments fly. 

how we laughed at time, and mocked. 

And dared his surges to sweep on their worst ; 
And pulled the silver beard of him who rocked 

The young creation, when it rising first 
Peeped out from chaos, and its maker's hand — 
Henceforth a world, a universe to stand. 

We dreamed not the old fellow who had strown 
The bones of empires thickly in his way. 

Could change our hearts, or could dethrone 
That sovereign idol which alone held sway ; 

Did we not know each other ? why should time 

Despoil the tower it builded up sublime ? 

We dreamed amiss ! the silent touch which bound 

The ivy mantle upon fallen Troy, 
Was doomed to clasp us in its passing round. 

And clasping, smother every fount of joy ; 

1 will, that I've begun, narrate the tale. 
Although it make thee shudder and turn pale. 



POEMS. 15 

The story of our childhood thou must know, 
To pierce this demon of the human heart ; 

And learn what poisonous weeds may grow 
On goodly soil until they form a part, 

And with their wings like deadly locusts spread. 

Fling out their ruin on the victim's head. 

Our parents had their castles, and were proud. 
And taught us early worship at the shrine 

Where wealth, and pride, with folly ever bow. 
As though like tender ivy we would twine ; 

For they had planned while we were children gay, 

That we should wed upon some future day. 

We play'd amid the flowers, and laughed, and wept, 
And even as they wished us fanned the flame, 

Which, though in urns of different nature kept. 
Was but one spark, which afterwards became 

Our living soul, — our soul of quenchless fire, 

That ever flashed, and ever darted higher. 

She was as lovely as the morning beams 

That glance in beauty upon mountain springs, 

As gentle, as the moonlight when it gleams 
With heaven's own lustre upon angel wings ; 

A sort of halo play around her brow ; 

Bright as I saw it then, I see it now. 



24 POEMS. 

She passed like a young bird 'mong fields of roses, 
Her gushing heart o'er filled with artless song, 

As sweet as in our dream sometimes discloses, 
When fondest thoughts upon our memory throng ; 

How could one fail to love a form so fair, 

Whose image fixed upon us, clings forever there ? 

But much unlike her nature was my own, 

For I had all of an Italian's fire — 
A haughty coldness which would be alone. 

Unless with those I loved, or some desire 
Burst in upon me bidding to be gay. 
When I would drive my stern resolves away. 

I looked upon the world as a dark den 

Of human beings trained to cherish crime, 

And felt no holy sympathy with men 

Who were, I thought, unblest with the sublime. 

And lofty spirit of a worship given 

To conscious virtue, by approving heaven. 

I spurned communion with surrounding dust, 
As though it were a poison to my touch : 

And every breath some wave of lawless lust 
Received, at least, my silent scorn as such ; 

Until the breach between us widened so 

That I was strangered to my kin below — 



POEMS. J5 

Save this fair spirit, which around my path 
With radiant wings assumed an angel's form, 

And gently quelled the tempest of my wrath, 
As yonder bow would check the cloudy storm, 

And soothe with its soft glance the chafing sea. 

So was her presence like a spell to me. 

No wonder that I clung to her with mood 
Of phrenzied love, she was my star of light. 

So fair, so gentle, innocent, and good ; 

Even as those beings who in garments bright 

Watch 'round the weary pilgrim's couch of rest, 

Doing kind deeds to make his slumbers blest. 

Such were her graces that tliey even threw 
A charm on all the coarser world around, 
'Till gazing on her I forgot to view 

The countless faults which seemed to erst abound, 
Ere her own magic like a spell redeemed 
The sullied spark, ethereal though it gleamed. 

I loved her as I loved myself, aye more ! 

I would have died to save her single hair, 
I only lived to worship, and adore 

Perfection dreamed, but never found so fair ; 
I was a slave to do her slightest will, 
Not the stern clay thou look'st at living still. 



16 POEMS. 

She knew my loflly humor, quiet, stern, 
Which only yielded tribute unto v/orth ; 

And prized me dearer that I did discern 
Between the noble, and the noble birth ; 

And like the vine that clings unto the rock, 

She closer twined beneath each tempest shock. 

I was the.Delphos, where her lingering feet, 

Came to consult the oracle divine. 
Love's stayless mandate — daily she would greet 

With holiest incense the unspotted shrine. 
Like a young priestess sending up her prayer, 
That it might burn forever brightly there. 

So fled the rapid time, year after year, 
Until I bore the stamp of manhood's seal, 

A time and age when aught we hold most dear. 
Inspires us most its strength and worth to feel ; 

When all the love that I had cherished long 

With constant heart, seem'd more than doubl}^ strong. 

The day was set to seal our happy fate. 

And we were gay with dreams of coming bliss, 

With hopes and joys which made our hearts elate, 
And I for once all sadness did dismiss ; 

So strong the power that bound me like a spell 

I could but love, so hate I bid farewell. 



POEMS. 17 

It was a pleasant eve, as to the hall 
That held lanthe 1 bent my eager way, 

My bosom leaped to the familiar fall 
Of an old sentry's footstep, on the grey, 

Moss covered battlement, where oft 

I in her ear breathed love's low music soft. 

I ope'd a little gate that to her bower 
Of twining ivy and green cypress led, 

Where I had passed full many a blissful hour 
In weaving rosy garlands for her head. 

While she sat gazing tenderly on me, 

Each unto each, a hallowed deity. 

I neared the place, the moon was glistening bright 
Among the stars in the blue deep above, 

It seemed uncommon beauty clothed the night, 
Or I was maddened with the thirst of love, 

For every murmur of the breeze that came 

Fell on my ear as though it bore my name. 

Hark ! did I hear ? or was it but the gale ? 

It was a sound — I listened, I stood still ; 
'Twas from lanthe' s bower, and by the pale 

Moon light, upon the seat we used to fill, 
I saw one face I knew not, one I knew, 
And like a statue in my steps I grew. 



18 ' POEMS. 

He had his arm around her neck, his h'p 
Was pressed lo hers, and he did kiss ; 

My God ! from the same fount where I did sip, 
I saw him tasting, like the hiss 

Of hungry dragons was the hollow sound, 

It stabbed me deeper than the steel could wound. 

Then came a voice, a whisper, and it said — 

/'Fredrico knows not thou art here, 
I kept thy name so secret, as if dead, 

And all thy letters unto rne so dear, 
No eye but mine has ever looked upon 
In the sweet years of youth and childhood gone." 

Thus spake lanthe to him, and again 
He held my idol fondly to his breast. 

Had a red bolt passed through my firantic brain, 
And not the sight of all I loved, carest, 

Gods ! I might now be free from guiltless blood, 

Free as one hour before that hour I stood. 

I ne*er had known a rival, and the thought 
Was instant madness, like a hidden fire 

That green-eyed monster rose within, and wrought 
The very fountains of my desperate ire ; 

I chafed with hot revenge, aye more ! 

I clutched a dagger from the belt I wore, 



POEMS. 19 

A dagger jewel hilled, which one day 
She fastened to my side, so I might be 

Her own true gallant cavalier alway, 
Her brigand as it were fac similie ; 

Unthinking how its polished point might blast 

Her life, her soul, the future and the past. 

I drew it, held it to my bosom as a friend, 
And whispered calmly what I wished to do, 

1 kissed its edge, and breathed a curse to blend 
With its keen brightness, beautiful to view ! 

The steel seemed conscious where its errand lay. 

And leaped to glut my vengeance on its prey. 

Softly I crouched, as tigers when they spring 
On the sound sleeper in the jungle bed, 

I stood behind him silent as the wing 

Of viewless angels, when around they spread 

Their shadowy arms, to bear the fainting soul, 

Unknowing of its finale to its goal. 

I bent my ear one instant, but no breath .:^'j%^ 
Escaped my lips — I wished to know, ;:^;^fSS^-^" 

The name of him my dagger doomed to death ; 
I could not hear, they spoke so passing low, 

But one short sentence fell upon my ear. 

He ** wished Fredrico were a moment here." 



20 POEMS. 

Ho, take thy wish ! I uttered with a yell 
That shook the bower as if a demon spoke, 

And to his heart the steel unerring fell ; 
He leaped into the air, a single stroke 

Had snapt his life cord, and the spouting gore 

Flew in my face as by him I bent o'er ! 

Then rang a shriek, a shriek, that instant chilled 
My leaping pulse — it was lanthe's shriek ; 

" O God, it is my brother you have killed !" 
I heard not, saw not, vengeance was too weak, 

The awful truth burst on me like a shock, 

And I fell senseless as a smitten rock. 

I woke within the walls of a low prison damp, 
Still in my ear that same wild thrilling cry; 

It was my music, I heard not the tramp 
Of the grim dungeon rats go by. 

But sat intently gazing on the floor. 

My fingers dabbling, as I thought, in gore. 

For months I moved not but to gnaw the crust 
Some unseen agent daily thrust within. 

My chains did laugh and mock me through their rust, 
And the cold walls at times would ghastly grin 

And nod at me, and whisper to each other, 

** This is the assassin of lanthe's brother." 



POEMS. 21 

1 raved, and tore my hair, of what avail ? 

I dashed my head against a peering stone, 
It only echoed, madman, to my wail ; 

I was a spectre haunted there alone — 
Ha ! how I tossed my fettered limbs in air, 
And sung the crazy anthem of despair. 

The keepers paused sometimes and pitied me, 
And one old priest said ave's for my poor soul ; 

What cared I for their pity f when the tree 
Is scathed by lightning, what though rivers roll 

Close by its roots, and soft the fresh wind grieves. 

Can they give life unto its blasted leaves? 

It was a solemn mockery, and made 

The raging blood boil fiercer in my veins ; 

I was no murderer, then why parade 

Their phantom forms around me ? I would rest, 

For I was weary of the long array 

Of sleepless nights that brought no better day. 

At last my hour of earthly trial came. 

And I was brought before the callous world. 

They whom I scorned, ere I was damned to fame. 
Ere from my place of conscious merit hurled ; 

And they derided me that I was chained. 

But not one word my haughty soul complained, 
2 



22 POEMS. 

They led me to the bar, and placed me fast 
Between two cringing minions of the law ; 

Then they began their questions, all the past 
They did unravel, and so finely draw 

The story of my crime into a thread, 

That sentence fell on my unshrinking head. 

It seemed lanthe, wishing to surprise, 
Had wrote her brother in a foreign land, 

To come unto her bridal in disguise. 
And as a guest amid the others stand 

Until the happy knot was tied, when she. 

Would have a ruse in showing him to me. 

That very eve he reached his father's hall, 

And when the burst of smothered love was o'er, 

He and lanthe strolled to make a call 

Upon their favorite bower, where long before 

He was her playmate, ere the call of arms 

Enticed him from the castle and its charms. 

And he was pressing on her cheek a kiss, 

Fit emblem of a brother's love, as I 
Came gaily onward, dreaming but of bliss. 

When some most vagrant breathing wind swept by, 
Charged with the power to wake my jealous soul, 
Which once aroused spurned madly at control. 



POEMS. 23 

The rest thou knowest ! I slew him, and the steel 
lanthe gave me, drank his life blood up ; 

They held the spotted blade so I might feel 
Its scorpion memories in my bitter cup ; 

Then 'mid the jeers of rabbles I was led 
All fettered back to my own prison bed. 

T never saw lanthe more, they brought 

No message from her, and no soothing word 

To quench the burning fountains of my thought, 
Which were like lava to their bottom stirred ; 

Save that one day a black sealed packet said, 

*' Fredrico's troth, the crazed lanthe was dead." 

Then did I learn her own sad history, then. 
They told me how from that unhallowd eve 

Her brain had wandered, and how she had been 
A drivelling maniac, living but to grieve ; 

A melancholy shadow flitting by 

With pallid brow and wild unearthly eye. 

For many months she wasted with her wo. 
Until tired nature could not suffer more, 

And then they laid her on the couch, all low, 
And brought her flowers that she did once adore ; 

And that which should have been her bridal bed, 

Death chose the place to lay lanthe's head. 



24 POEMS. 

She died ! but just before she died, the light 
Of her lost reason once more brightly burned, 

It was that hour when day melts into night, 
And on her couch the pallid sufferer turned 

To catch one glimpse of heaven, the last, 

Her closing eye should on creation cast. 

Just then the angel of remembrance stirred 
The fount of memory with his crystal wing. 

She called my name, a long unspoken word. 
And gently wished me, as I used, to sing 

A song, that was my favorite, and her own. 

Ere o'er my soul the pall of crime was thrown. 

She paused as 'twere to hear a gentle strain. 
But silence chained her minstrel in his cell ; 

Then on her pillow she did turn again — 

That moment broke the fond enchanting spell. 

She shrieked my name, her brother's, and expired. 

The second victim of my frenzy fired. 

I said no word, I answered not, nor cared ; 

My soul was but a blasted, withered thing, 
Cut loose from all the sympathies it shared, 

A fountain once, but now a stagnant spring, 
A place where fiends might revel, had not pride 
Closed up the gates to every ill beside. 



POEMS. 25 

I know not whether she forgave me then 
In that same moment, and it matters not, 

That would not bring the blossom back again ; 
lanthe dead, her brother dead, the thought, 

Mocked at forgiveness, as the tempests mock 

Yon foamy surge that beats the rifted rock ! 

And here am I, in this bleak world alone. 

Struck from the roll of virtuous and the blest, 

Sad as the soul whose solitary moan 

Is o'er the grave of all it loved the best ; 

Why should I live, why should I linger here, 

A smitten tree, whose branches are all sear ? 

My light has perished, and my morning star 
Sunk ere the noon, eclipsed by bloody crime, 

Why should I hope for mercy, who would mar 
That of creation's works the most sublime ? 

I strive not against justice, I will die 

As brave men perish, uncomplainingly. 

I only ask to have my place of sleep 
Where rests lanthe in her gravel bed, 

So that one willow over us may keep 

Its long sad branches like a banner spread. 

Through which the wind a passing note may wake, 

And o'er our couch some solemn music make. 



2Q P OE M S . 

lanthe, gentle spirit ! didst thou dream 

That all, our two fond hearts had cherished, 

Would Hash and fade like a wild meteor gleam 
And die, even as our hopes have perished ? 

So pass the fairest fancies of life's vision. 

And leave us but to gaze at the Elysian. 

1 come to thee, lanthe, earth, farewell ! 

Ye minions of the law on, do your w^orst, 
Strike to the heart, even as my dagger fell — 

Death cannot more than life to me be curst ; 
Blot out my name and let me sleep with her, 
Who loved, adored, and was my worshipper. 



TMl #\i^TDiT'i PMlhY 



Here let us worship. Not with voices sad, 
Upon thy earth, O God, in beauty clad. 
And music, and strange loveliness. I feel 
A sudden glory 'mong my heart cords steal. 
Asking a spirit anthem. O let me 
Who lovest all things glorious, arise, 
And to the evening wind, and to the skies 



POEMS. 27 

Studded with silver fooled stars, awake 
The stillness of my longing soul, and make 
My faint low prayer, to Him, the uncreale, 
In whose deep bosom is the will of fate ! 
O let me bow most reverently, for I 
Am yet a child, great Father, in thy temple high ; 
This wondrous and exceeding universe, whose sky 
Halo's my dwelling through immensity ; a child, 
Lisping, but yesterday, a few faint numbers wild 
To the sweet cadence of thy forest birds ; 
A few half rapturous incoherent words. 
Mingling with brookfall murmuring s that rose 
And echoed in my spirit, as the soft wind blows 
Round Memnom's mystic summit, and awakes 
Strange hymnings, soft as evening zephyr shakes 
From the jEolian harp strings 

Aye, let me, 
Kneel on this mossy knoll, and unto Thee 
Pour forth the music of my worship soul : 
O glorious God ! I hear the distant roll 
Of Ocean surges, that since eldest time 
Have sung their everlasting hymn sublime ; 
This eve they whisper from their caverns deep. 
Where flashing corals, and young Naiads sleep 
Beneath the pale browed moon, all low and lone. 
Uttering that wildest murmur, that deep moan 



2g POEMS. 

We hear in hollow shells, when far away 
We lifi them to our eais. They bid me pray, 
Earnest, and loud, and the fresh evening breeze 
Drooping its garments on the leafy trees. 
And o'er the river ripples, and with wing 
Soft as an infant angel's on the spring, 
Fanning the blossom's fragrance, bid me turn 
My heart to adoration. Lo, I yearn 
To melt into their cadence ! 

O Father, list, 
The evening is propitious. Through the mist, 
Falling like sifted tears from angel eyes. 
Glisten the far off watchers of the skies. 
Clad in their golden robes. The lofty stars. 
Holding eternal audience, through their bars, 
With the green earth, and with the ocean waves; 
Gleaming on palaces and huts of slaves, 
Undimned and beautiful. They bid me spurn 
The roofs of temples, and the fanes where learn 
Our lips all hollow prayers, an e'en as they. 
Beneath the unmeasured blue bow down and pray. 
And utter my thanksgiving. 

Thus I come ! 
O hush all passion voices, be ye dumb. 
Dumb, while I murmur to the living God, 



POEMS . 29 

And with the flowers that sighing round me nod, 
Kindle a hymn of inspiration. Great and good, 
And wonderful art Thou, but yesterday who stood 
Before the avenging angel, when my brow 
Was pale and hot with fevers, and who now 
Givest thy cooling zephyrs — beautiful the world 
Which thou hast given to thy children ; green, 
Fresh, and fair, and over it unfurled 
Banners of purple cloud, whose gorgeous dye. 
Flashes a glory on the upturned eye. 
Magnificently vast. I thought yestreen 
My pencil had a power, that I could lift 
My vision to the heavens, and trans-shift 
Their crimson to the canvass, pardon me, 

Father, God, that I should strive with Thee, 
Stealing the shadow of thy colors ! Nay, 

1 am a child, my ait is but a play 
Marring the blossoms in the vestibule 

Of thy great temple. What is human rule 

In measuring the infinite ? A single flower 

Has taught me of my folly, only Thou 

Can'st tinge the spray, and on the rainbow's brow 

Garland the flash of brightness. 

I am mute, 
I yield the pencil and the cankered fruit 
Which mocks the real — I am henceforth thine, 



30 POE>rs. 

A lowly worshipper before the shrine 

Where Thou hast spread all kinds of gorgeousness ; 

The canvass, I adored, is lost ; 'twas less 

Than least of these young leaves, or summer buds. 

And infinite is either star that studs 

Yon roof Empyrean with living light, 

O'er all our mimic triumphs. Here this night 

Do I forswear the easel. O forgive 

My feeble mockery, henceforth I live 

But in thy splendor ! Let these fields and flowers, 

Sweet springs, and brooks, and glorious summer 

hours. 
The wind, the lightning, and the passing cloud, 
As on my vision in their pomp they crowd, 
Be my great picture, the immensity. 
Which speaks through all its glory but of Thee. 

Father supreme. 
This is no phantasy, no idle dream ; 
I come as the free spirit wills. No glare 
Has wrought upon my soul, but this same fair 
And glorious world. Why should I not ? 
The shrines by ancients built, they are forgot 
And buried in the earth. The names of kings 
Are but the pastime of the curious, things, 
To be remembered in some misty hour. 
When history stretches forth her wand with power, 



K 



POEMS. 31 

And brushes from antiquity, the mould, 
Which ages of neglect shall ever fold 
O'er human brows. The images divine 
Our mortal masters bid from marble shine, 
Or from the canvass, where but yesterday 
I thought myself creator, pass away, 
And are the sport of moths, and slow decay ; 
While thy great world the touch of time defies, 
The earth is ever fresh, and yonder skies 
Flutter their fadeless robes o'er centuries 
Buried eternally ! 

Nor this alone 
Bringeth my worship spirit to thy throne. 
Magnificent indeed ! From every zone 
Wafted by spicy winds, what myriads blend 
Their anthem voices, and harmonious send 
A Paean to the sky. How deep, and loud. 
Over the music of the bursting cloud. 
And the hoarse roar of surges, breaks their voice, 
Chaunting, how beautiful ! rejoice ! rejoice ! 
How w^ondrous beautiful, and wise and good, 
Art Thou, O bounteous Father, who art food 
For forms and souls that hunger, who art wine 
For thirsty lips and spirits, and doth twine 
Garments for all our nakedness. O Thine 
Is life and happiness, and Thou hast spread 



32 POEMS. 

Beauty beneath our feet, and overhead 
Surpassing splendor. 

O Father, may 
I ever thank Thee, and forever pray 
Even as I pray this eve, that Thou wilt bring 
Such solace to my spirit ; let me cling 
To these thy glorious garments, and upspring 
And melt into thy being. Let me be 
Imbued with but one spirit, poesy ! 
And in the living numbers of the soul 
Weave all my dreams of glory, let me roll 
My weary heart cords in the crystal sea 
Of thy perpetual love, and worship Thee, 
The giver of all good and perfect gifts ; 
Thee, only infinite, whose presence lifts 
And bears me unto triumph. 

Lo, I've done ! 
The evening is far gone, and I have won 
The crown immortal. There is joy and peace 
Within my bosom, and a sweet release 
Has passed upon the chains that held me long 
To shrines of idols. A resplendant throng, 
Quiver on golden wings along the skies, 
Tearful and glad. To-morrow shall arise 



POEMS. * 33 

The sun with fresher beauty, and will shine 
Upon these vallies, and wierd hills of Thine, 
Upon the face of man, and on the flowers, 
And music shall arise from many bowers. 
Soft as the breath of myrrh ; and there will be 
Hymnings and trustful prayers, a symphony 
Of lips made eloquent by love to Thee, 
O grant it spirit Father, infinite, 
'Till all have learned to worship Thee aright ! 



A new made grave ! 
Among the willows, w^hose long branches wave 
Like weeping angel's hair — and here she lies, 
Silent and low beneath the clouded skies, 
Through which the stars look down with tearful eyes. 
Mournful and sad. A rose from blasted tree, 
Brouo^ht to a stranger's crimsoned land to be 
The sport of death, O such was Dohummee ! 
But yesterday her laugh rang in the wild 
Dim woods away, and she was nature's child, 
Sportive and free — to-day upon the bier 
In a great city's streets, her brief career 
Closed to the world. — 



34 fOEMS. 

A new made grave !* 
The resting place of the poor Indian girl, 
Whose spirit would not stay 'mong those who slaved 
And drove away her race. The young flowers curl 
Their lips above her dust, and fondly save 
The dampness of the night to dim their eyes 
With pitying tears, and low the soft wind sighs 
Its sorrowing for the dead. Above her, 'graved 
With words a gushing soul hath spoken, 
The marble lifts its brow, at least a token 
Of one's deep love — Aye, there unbroken 
The silence of its lips shall ever tell, 
How sympathized that heart, how strong the spell 
That bound Wacontamt to her dark eyed sister ; 
How in the sadness of that bitter hour 
Which robbed the earth of one unspotted flower, 
She stooped above the couch and kissed her. 
Wiping her fevered brow with gentle hand ; 
And the stern braves will curse the stranger's land 
With less of scorn, when they have learned how well 
A woman's love has done. — 

A new made grave ! 
Her childhood's home is far amid the wood. 
Where leap the springs, and where the river flood 
Bears not a keel ; her childhood's happy home 

* Greenwood, t Mrs. C. M. Sawyer. 



POEMS. 35 

Clustering with flowers, and giant trees, that wave 
Defiance to the fire of clouds, and brave 
The tempest's wrath. No more her feet shall tread 
That forest path, where scarce the rabbit fled 
From her sweet gaze ; the Indian rose is dead, 
And flowers of its own hue are loudly weeping, 
While she, the stricken, by the ocean sleeping. 
Hears not their voice ; yet heareth she the surge 
Which thunders with its everlasting dirge, 
The requiem of her race. — 

A new made grave I 
Bearing forever in its arms of dust, 
A fresh, a beautiful, and sacred trust, 
To which the heart that hath a tear shall turn 
And give it to the sleeping one ; and he. 
The Father of that bud, the broken stem 
From which hath drop't the frail and spotless gem, 
Although the turf he may not ever see ; 
Shall know as comes her spirit on the wind. 
That friends are by the grave he left behind, 
Watching the ashes of that beauteous child, 
And love shall steal into his bosom wild. 
And he will bless Wacontam, even she. 
Who loved, and watched, and wept for Dohummee ! 



[POM©! ©[1 IL[E©[K] 



What whim hath fired the warrior's soul 

Whose lance should now be couched in rest ? 

Why goes he forth whose battle goal 

Was woo'd long 5^ears ago, and prest ? 

What dream hath stirred De Leon's heart, 

That he should toss those locks of grey 

Upon the ocean breeze, and part 

From Spain and soft repose away ? 

Go ask the warrior, let him tell, 

Bid him reveal the wondrous spell 

That charms him from his native land : — 

His sword has tried the combat well. 

His ear has heard the triumph swell, 

And fame has rested on his brand ; 

His palaces with gold are filled, 

His slaves unto his will are willed. 

Why ventures forth the hero more f 

Ah ! what though empire were his own. 

Himself a monarch on the throne 

With armies tramping at his word — 

And glory glistening from his sword 

O'er cities sacked in seas of gore — 



POEMS. 37 

Think ye 't can sate that prisoned fire, 
The touch of age but lashes higher ? 
De Leon's youth and strength are past, 
His brow has felt the withering blast, 
And though his laurels freshly wave, 
Although his heart be stern and brave 
For deeds that gave his youth renown, 
The dream has changed from glorious light 
Which wed him with its visions bright ! 



O" 



What to the soul that's chafed with years 
Is all the glittering wealth of mines ! 
What are the trophies glory rears 
Where lance and banner gaily shines ? 
Can these the light of heaven restore, 
Give back the heart its youth, and zeal. 
And rouse the spirit as before 
With gleamings youth can only feel :* 
Nay ! to yon oak the storm has bowed, 
On which the lightning fiercely sprung 
With ruin from the opening cloud — 
Restore the leaves that round it clung ; 
Give back its life — and to the heart 
Thy touch may strength, and youth impart ! 

If only fame the warrior asked. 
And fame could pay for waste of years — 
3* 



oo POEMS. 

If to the spirit, soiled and tasked, 
And withered to a spring of tears, 
The world could give a single hour 
Untainted by the tyrant's power 
Who shrivels, and decays the heart ; 
De Leon's feet had never prest 
The valleys where his golden dream. 
Saw life's sweet childhood rising blest 
With a fresh youth's perpetual gleam. 

Some wind unto his ear had borne 
A whisper from a stranger land, 
A voice that with the purple morn, 
And on his night dreams softly broke, 
And in his inmost soul awoke 
A wild strange ecstacy — it came. 
As spirits come, who gently weave 
Around our troubled souls at eve, 
O'er every ill, and every sorrow. 
The gleamir^gs of a golden morrow. 
It told him of a wondrous spring 
Whose waters had the power to heal 
The wreck of other years, and bring 
The prime of boyhood back, and seal 
His griefs and wrinkles in a grave 
As deep, and strong as Lethe's wave ! 



POEMS. 39 

Perpetual youth ! what houri spell 
Could charm the heart of age so well ? 
Perpetual youth ! Each passing wind 
Bespoke the fount, and bade him find 
The magic which should back restore 
The beauty that his childhood wore. 
It was no dreaming of the heart, 
No castle of his fancy's art ; 
The wish that o'er his bosom crossed 
When all that sweetened life was lost, 
A wish which every heart has felt, 
That we might kneel, as we had knelt. 
With childhood's hands toss up the flowers 
And feel no weariness of hours ; 
A wish hke this, caught up the tale 
Which came upon the ocean gale, 
And Leon to the westward turned. 
As to an altar whereon burned 
The vestal fire by Allah given, 
To lure the wanderer into heaven. 

Once more the bridle to the steed. 

Once more the lance av/ay from rest, 

His barque is on the ocean's breast, 

Its wings have caught the lightning's speed : 

Away ! away ! until the stream 

Which flashed upon his warrior dream. 



4Q POEMS. 

Has burst with its perennial tide, 

And back restored him manhoods's pride. 

Away ! away ! until his brow 

So haooard, stained, and wrinkled now, 

Is smooth as that in days of yore 

His gay and happy childhood bore. 

What helmets gleam in Leon's train. 

The stoutest hearts, the flower of Spain 

Have gathered to the warrior's side, 

To help him woo that mystic bride 

Whose smile the world had never seen — 

Amid Florida's forest green 

The hero's steed, his curb-bit champing. 

Is to the sound of bugles tramping ; 

Ho ! up at morn, on, on 'till night. 

No rest until that fountain bright 

Leaps up to meet the warrior's eye, 

Until he drinks and cannot die. 

What months are passed in search and fray, 

What hours are lost by sad delay, 

How droop the plumes and banners gay ; 

The gold he scattered in the sand 

Has not yet turned to wizard's wand, 

The fainting youths are worn and tired, 

A part have sickened and expired ; 

Still is De Leon's bosom fired. 



POEMS. 41 



Still gleams that fountain on his view ; 
As on, o'er hills, and valleys through, 
He only adds to wrinkles gained, 
A heart o'er sickened nriore and pained. 

O can he yield that dream of hope. 
Must he return, nor find the w^ell. 
Whose bubbling gave his soul a spell. 
That for a day had power to ope 
Elysian gates before his eyes, 
A fond and fleeting paradise f 
Nay ! on the die his life is cast. 
In spite of storm and winter blast, 
By all he loved, or once defied. 
By all he dared, and would have died 
To win on fields with strength of arm, 
He swears to bide and seek the charm. 

But time hath more than warrior's nerve 
Or warrior boast, or warrior steel : 
The wearied spirit soon shall swerve 
And in its ruined castle reel ; 
And he who rode with iron heel 
When war shook out her banners dun, 
Shall faint before that fount is won ! 
By toil o'er spent, De Leon's lies, 
The sickness' damp upon his brow, 



42 POEMS. 

A child in grief and trouble now, 
A youth in all but will and soul, 
As down the Mississippi's wave 
They bear him onward to his grave.* 

'Tis hard to leave this glorious world, 
To fold our arms, and yield and die, 
To smile upon the smiling sky. 
Which like a robe of light unfurled, 
Casts many a glance to woo us back ; 
'Tis hard to feel the last lone sigh 
Press o'er the portal of the soul, 
Away from home, no mother nigh 
To calm the bitter waves that roll 
And dash aiound the palsied heart ; 
How one will fear, and shrink, and start,- 
Not yet prepared, nor ready yet, 
When, lo ! the summons comes to quit, 
And 'mid our fevered dreams we sink, 
A moment, quiver on the brink, 
Then plunge into a darksome river, 
The light of Hope put out forever ! 

Thus Leon's soul by phrenzy tost 
O'er all his dream so loved, and lost, 
Strives with the fatal hour ; 

* Died in Cuba. 



POEMS. 43 

The sultry winds that round him wing 
Their forest fragrance, ever bring 
The waters of his fabled spring, 
And with a fiendish power 
Elude his lips, and only press 
The poison weeds of bitterness 
Upon his parched and burning tongue, 
They whisper, rise, be young ! be young ! 
Were he with Atlas' sinews fraught, 
And all the armies here who fought 
Obedient to his olden word. 
Though he the Genii's wondrous sword. 
Or that which cleft the Gordian knot 
Could wield with twenty giant's might. 
He could not win one sparkle bright. 
Nor stay the sand in yonder glass. 

De Leon, thou must henceward pass ! 

To-day's the last, the warrior's bed 

This eve, will be in darkness spread, 

Far down in his cold river home ! 

What fearful strife hath rent his heart, 

The dream is o'er and he must part. 

Gaze, Leon, quick ! for more thine eye 

Shall never look on earth or sky. 

Behold the sun's declining beams, 

How through these trees its brightness streams ; 



44 POEMS. 

To-morrow morn shall see them glide 

As sweetly o*er the crested tide, 

While thou from fount, and life, and day, 

Art wrapt in silence far away. 

The chief has looked, his gasping breath 

Proclaims the triumph tread of death, 

The oars are muffled, and a dirge, 

The sad, are wailing to the surge ; 

He, who had searched and thirsted long. 

No more a partner of their throng. 

Deep on that river's bottom lies, 

Beneath the glance of jewelled skies. 

All cold, and desolate, and lone. 

The conquered on his dream.less throne : 

With plume and belt, and helm arrayed, 

His arms across his bosom laid, 

He waits the trumpet's twang, to mount 

And further search that mystic fount. 

Which kept retreating from his eye, 

Until he laid him down to die. 

It little reek's how well he fought. 

What legions yielded to his sword, 

That simple fount, though fearless sought, 

The hero's triumph hour deferred. 

And as it laid him down to rest, 

Tore all the trophies he had prest 



POEMS. 45 

From warrior brows in battle brave, 
And left him but a stricken slave. 

Yet cold as sleeps De Leon's clay, 
And long as he has passed away. 
Though all unseen the fountain deep, 
It was no dream that magic spring ; 
For even now its waters leap. 
And all around our presence fling 
The shadows of a fresher clime, 
And kindlings of a day sublime 
Within the heart, and on the soul, 
Like floods of summer glory roll ; 
And 'mid their brightness softly stealing. 
Comes that wondrous spring's revealing, 
Seen with keener eyes than shine, 
Through those weary lids of thine ; 
Seen like spring's first glances flashing. 
Or Castalia's waters dashing 
Round the troubled spirit's shrine. 

Not where rise the western hills, 
Nor where leap the mountain rills 
Through the vale of golden sand ; 
In no far and fabled land 
Where the black cloud fiercely bursteth, 
And the toil worn soldier thirsteth 
4 



45 P E M s . 

(Tired of searching thus in vain) 

For his native land again. 

Ne'er shall eye of man behold it, 

Ne'er the light of day unfold it, 

To the tramp of warrior feet ; 

Too far, De Leon, thou hast sought, 

Too madly wished, too fiercely wrought, 

And only gained a stern defeat ! 

The spring was on thy native shore. 

Not where the foamy waters roar. 

Which woo the crowds that ever press 

To drink their showy wretchedness. 

But in a lone and quiet spot, 

A holy cave, a sacred grot, 

Where from the world and wo apart. 

Hath sprung the pure and stainless heart. 

How much of toil the soul has borne, 
How many rankling fetters worn 
Whose trophies w^ere a wrinkled brow, 
A spirit wrecked and crushed with fear, 
Al^ctions dwindled up and sear, 
A manhood forced to cringe and bow. 
While yet the fire within was left 
To burn the cords of life bereft. 
And make the palace desolate, 
Wherein had dwelt a stormy fate. 



POEMS. 47 

How much of youth is idly lost. 
How much of hoary age's frost 
Our hands have loaded on the heart, 
How many a bluntly barbed dart 
Has left the passion fevered string, 
A curse upon itself to bring. 

De Leon's feet were not alone, 
The pilgrims throng from every zone. 
And search as wild, and long as he; 
The dream has made in every breast 
Itself, a loved, and welcome guest, 
All strive to live their childhood o'er, 
To find the calm they felt before. 
When youth from guilt, and stain was free ! 
Some bathe their lips in pleasure's well, 
* Some weave their robe of fancy's spell, 
And some dive deep in folly's swell 
To stay the steps of withering age — 
As well defy the tempest's rage. 
As well unhorse the fiery scathe 
That leaps from thunder cloud in wrath, 
As stem the tide, and curse of years 
With dreams v/hich only end in tears. 

Nay ! on thy brow the seal is set,- 
The woes and storms De Leon met, 



48 POEMS. 

If thus ye search, are ever thine : 

But turn, and ye may find the spring, 

The fountain shall its waters fling 

And give thee back thy childhood's shrine ! 

Shake not the spear, nor toss the glaive, 

Loose not thy barque upon the wave. 

Nor hope, nor dream, that far away, 

Serener hues of summer play — 

Bend here thy brow with holier zeal 

Where virtue rears her glorious throne, 

And like the spicy winds that steal 

From isles where fadeless flowers have blown, 

Shalt thou a radiant halo feel ; 

That fount, thy heart is deep within. 

From thence its gleamings thou must win. 

There drink, where living waters roll, 

And o'er the manhood of the soul. 

Shall love, and faith, and hope, and truth. 

Restore thee to perpetual youth. 



A babe upon the plains of Bethlehem! 
Fair as the morning star, that orient gem 



POEMS. 49 

Which beamed upon the shepherds e3'"es, and led 
Their eager feet beside his lowly bed, 
The manger's straw. A child most beautiful, 
With blossom on his lips, and in his full 
Deep eyes a holy love, as on the face 
Of his young mother, with a wistful gaze 
Lingers his placid look. A spell of grace 
No cheek has ever worn, around him plays, 
Like sunset's flashing on the silver stream ; 
And forth his hands are reached, as in our dream 
Angels of shadow beckon. Lo, around, 
Breaketh a song of Seraj)h's, a sweet sound 
Of tongues invisible, crying, " behold. 
We bring good tidings of great joy, of old 
Unto all people promised, whom ye seek, 
Is Christ, the holy one," the low and meek ; 
Who though he hath not where to lay his head. 
Shall yet arise, and in the temple tread, 
Jesus the Wonderful ! "for he shall save 
His people from their sins," and from the grave. 

A child among the Doctors, with grave brow 
Teaching his strange philosoph}^ They bow 
In mute astonishment, with eager ear 
The words of wisdom from such lips to hear ; 
For, lo ! he tells them like some gifted seer. 

Their dispensation is fulfilled. They cry 

4* 



gQ POEMS. 

*' He blasphemeth, and speaketh but a lie !" 
Yet calm is Christ, the mission from above, 
His Father's glory, and his Father's love, 
Soothe and sustain him, he is strong, 
And they have turned away, that listening throng. 
With a deep reverence for the bo}^ 

A man. 
Perfect in stature, bidding with sweet voice 
The multitude to listen and lejoice. 
As fell those words of love, and from his tongue 
Peace and good-will like heavenly music rung ; 
While at his touch, the palsied from his bed 
Rose in his strength, the lame from crutches fled, 
The blind regained their sight, and e'en the dead 
Bursting their narrow graves, arose, 
And casting off their damp and mouldy clolhes. 
Smiled as though roused from slumber. 

A3"e ! a man, 
Holy and pure, but such as ne'er before 
Trode in the earth, or spake such wondrous lore, 
Teaching the very God — Himself the Son 
Speaking but in his Father's name, as one 
Commissioned to the lost, bearing the seal, 
Which was to man, to all mankind reveal 
The Father's infinite love, and from the chain 



POEMS. 51 

Abaddon had cast 'round, restore again 

The children of His image. Wondrous man, 

God-head in feeble clay, to live, and learn. 

And be example perfect ; and to burn 

Radiant before the world, be mocked, and scourged, 

But never waver — calm, though fiercely urged. 

Bitterer than hemlock drinking, until he. 

Became, O God, a sacrifice for Thee. 

List to his word. 
Strange w^ord ! What ear of man has ever heard 
Sentence like these ? " Bless them who curse, and 

love 
All those who hate ; to others as 3^e would 
That they should do, do 3^0, be kind and good. 
With all thy might, and mind, and stiength, above 
Send up thy spirit's worship." Thus he spoke, 
As to the multitude his fingers broke 
The bread of life. Around him hov/ they throng, 
Unlettered fisherman, children with song 
Upon their lips ; sweet gems, " Of such as these," 
Said Christ, as eagerly upon his knees 
They clung, in robes of loveliness arrayed, 
*' M3' Father's kingdom is, His heaven is made 
Of pure young hearts ; O suffer them to be 
Lambs of the told, and followers of me, 
Who am my Father's shepherd." 



52 POEMS. 

Strange man, to-day, 
He bendetli down in Jordan's silver tide, 
Unstained e'en from his birth, and purified 
To do his work of love — who 3^et, the way 
Would teach, even as the Father wills ; *' Repent, 
Believe, and be baptized !" Lo, see him now 
Standing amid the waves, upon his brow 
Celestial halo beams, and like a dove 
Descends the holy spirit from above, 
And throuo^h the curtain of the Heaven's rent, 
The Father, smiling on His only son. 
Says, " This is my beloved, what he hath done 
Has pleased me well." 

There is a clamor now. 
The worshippers of unknown Gods arise, 
Thirsting for blood. They brand him with all lies, 
Cr^ang, " He eateth with unclean." They show, 
That he hath banded with the poor and low. 
With " publicans and sinners," and hath said, 
" I am the son of God !" Aloud they cry, 
Down with the impious, and on his head 
They set a price, and swear that he shall die ; 
Yet tremble they before his words, for, lo ! 
Their eyes have seen the lame and halting go, 
Casting away the crutch, and up the dead 
Have sprung to life before them with firm tread, 



POEMS. 53 

And praising lips. Although they turn and say, 
*' In name of Beelzebub, his prince, to-day, 
He casteth devils out, and stills the waves, 
Gives sight to blind, and robs the prison graves 
Of their mute sleepers," still they fear to bring 
The holy one to judgment. 

Yet the time is come. 
When he must drink the cup, although he pray 
" Father, I would that it might pass away. 
Yet not my will, but Thine, O God, be done," 
The mandate has gone forth ! The bond is done. 
For they, with thirty pieces have bribed one, 
Who shall salute him with a kiss, and pierce 
His trusting side, while bitterly and fierce 
His foes shall try, and mock him, and condemn, 
And lead him forth, who never gave to them 
One bitter word. 'Tis the last night. 
And the last supper they have gathered 'round. 
The Master and his followers. There is no sound 
Of joy upon their tongues, for Christ hath said. 
E'en as he poured the wine, and broke the bread, 
" As often as ye do this, think of me. 
My time is come ; for one of you shall be 
This evening my betrayer !" " Is it, I ?" 
With one accord the grieved disciples cry ; 
*' Who dippeth in the sop," the master saith, '^ 'tis 
he." 



54 POEMS. 

Forth to the Mount of Olives, sadly, they 

Have gone with stricken hearts, to watch and pray, 

That flock which shall be scattered — Christ alone 

Goeth aside, for sorrowful of soul, 

He hides the grief he cannot all control ; 

Leaving the watch which he hath set, he kneels, 

And as the wind upon his forehead steals, 

It fans the sweat of agony. *' O Godj" 

He prays, "if Thou canst stay the rod, 

And take the cup, I would, but do thy will ;" 

Thrice he hath prayed, and rises to fulfil 

The sacrifice* The weary watchers sleep. 

Though thrice he woke them, let them keep 

Their slumber now, his hour is come ! 

While yet he spoke, 
A multitude with staves the silence broke, 
With Judas in their midst — " whom I salute," 
The traitor whimpered to the throng, *' is he ;" 
And forth he went, saying, "Master, hail to thee !" 
"Whence art thou friend?" saidChrist; but Judas 

mute. 
Spake not a word. Then seized the rabble hold, 
And led him to Caiphas, the high priest. 
Saying, " this fellow saith, he can pull down 
And build the temple in three days," while he, 
Said not a word, which but increased 



POEMS. 55 

The people's rage — -C alphas, with a frown, 
Adjured him by the living God, '* art thou, 
The son of God, the Christ ?" with fearless brow, 
" So thou hast said," spake Christ? "I say to thee, 
Hereafter in the heavens thou shalt see, 
Coming in clouds at the right hand of power 
The Son of whom ye speak." Then, in that hour, 
" Away, away! he blasphemeth," they cry ; 
Bear him away to death, and crucify 
Him on the cioss. O God, is this thy son. 
Climbing the rugged hill, what hath he done 
But bless and bind up wounds, and must he die 
With malefactors ? even so ! they bring 
A crown of thorns, and hail him as their king ; 
Spit on his face, and smite him with a reed, 
And robe those sides with scarlet, which shall bleed 
For human kind. 

Lo, they have found a place ; 
Golgotha of the hills ! where they have thrown 
The sculls of slain, here shall the parting groan 
Be tortured from that breast ; they give him gall 
And vinegar to drink, and mocking call 
Him Lord. The Cross is reared, and he between 
Two thieves is nailed, and crucified ! what gloom 
Is in the sky 1 the temple's veil is rent. 
And there are voices in the firmament ; 



gg POEMS. 

The mountains rock around, and e'en the tomb 
Gives up its dead — " Eloi ! Eloi !" he cries 
And to his lips they press the sponge ; tis o'er ! 
He yieldeth up the ghost, his sacrifice 
Is done ! 

Now, triumph, ye who hate ! 
The Christ is dead, and they have ta'en him forth 
Blood}?" and pale, and laid him in the earth ; 
Aye, triumph now, yet be not too elate, 
For, lo ! in three short days he shall arise 
Even as he said, and up into the skies 
Ascend to God. Put watch around his grave, 
And seal the stone ; array yourselves, ye brave, 
iVnd guard the crucified, be strong, lest he, 
Whom ye have scourged, and mocked on Calvary, 
Should 'scape from that hewn rock. 

Three days have passed, 
And forth his followers hasten — Mary first 
Has found the Sepulchre. O woman, thus, 
Forever earliest on the wings of love. 
Art thou an angel visitant to us. 
Even as to him, who from above 
Came down to save ; our oil of hope, the dove. 
Bringing us olive leaves. She came, 
And lo, the stone was rolled away, and burst 
Were all the seals of death ; the shroud was there, 



POEMS. 57 

And two bright angels watching by his bed, 
Who, when they saw her tremble, called her name, 
** Woman, fear not, the Christ is risen ?" Then fled 
She to the city, whither he was gone. 
Yes, he was risen ! what grave, what stone could hold 
The Son of God ? what damp, or charnel mould 
Gather upon his brow ? To join his flock 
He had o'er mastered death, and from the rock 
Sprung forth to life ! The baffled watch may say, 
*' While we were sleeping, he was stole away," 
They swear to lies ; have not the faithful seen 
Their risen Lord ? aye ! multitudes have cried 
With doubting Thomas, as they saw his side 
Pierced through with wounds, " He is the Christ." 

Now caught to Heaven, 
At the right hand of God, where he shall draw 
" All men to him," all whom the father's given, 
And he has given *' all things" to Christ; the law 
Is now made honorable, and he, 
Shall henceforth reign with God, and be 
The Savior glorified. Shout every tongue. 
And hail the Lord ! O let, on bended knee, 
My spirit weave a worship song, let me. 
Even as the morning stars with rapture sung, 
Sing unto my Redeemer ; unto Thee, 
O Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen ! 
6 



[^[lEIKlW©©© 



Place for the Dead ! what fairer place 
Tb;m here amid these hillocks green, 
Where through the tan2:led willows, chace 
The sun-beams o'er the scented grass, 
Bj many a fairy dell, and pass. 
To cheer the dust below I ween ? 
O, what are pyramids, where slaves 
Have bent their brows, and sweat their blood ; 
And who would sleep in those wierd graves 
Where endless nights of darkness brood. 
When there are spots like these — where laid, 
Our sleep will be beneath the sky. 
Whose stars upon our turf shall braid 
The glory of their evening glance. 
While morning's beams around us dance, 
And kiss the flowers that cluster by? 

Place for the Dead ! how glorious here 
'Mong all these shrubs and waving trees, 
To lie and have the ocean breeze, 
Come freshly up to fan the sod. 
To know the dust around is trod 



POEMS. 59 

By curious feet — that weepers tears 

Shall wet our couch through future years, 

And youths, and maids, in summer hours, 

From noise of cities far away. 

Will love among the dead to stray. 

And strew our graves with sweetest flowers ! 

How ope's this morn its cloudless eye, 

How streams the sun its sparkling hair, 

The pomp and glory of the sky 

Come quivering through the fragrant air ; 

The gentle hand of time has prest 

The summer's loom, and wrought a vest 

Of purple, gold, and amethyst ; 

And here where fairy's hold their tryst 

The blue lip't violets are strown. 

What softer, fairer, coverlid, 

Could mortal ask beneath the sky ? 

What counterpane of lovelier dye 

The form of Tyrian king hath hid. 

In couch perfumed with smell of myrrh. 

Than this green turf, the summer's throne ? 

Where every passing breeze shall stir 

A cloud of roses from their rest ; 

O who would ask above his breast, 

More splendor than this golden day 

Upon the Greenwood turf has prest ? 



5Q POEMS. 

And ah ! when comes such glorious eve, 
With murmurings from the distant sea, 
When every rose has bowed to grieve 
And catch the dew drops silently ; 
Who could not sleep, who would not die 
Beneath these scented leaves to lie — 
Who would not say to pain adieu, 
And ask the cooling wings of death 
To fan away the fevered breath ; 
So we might rest beneath the blue, 
And have our watchers in the sky. 
With many a dark and tearful eye 
Of human mould to weep for us — 
Who would not deem it glorious, thus, 
To bid his griefs and ills farewell, 
And here in this sweet silence dwell ? 

Give me a grave away from kings. 

Away from pomp, away from power, 

Build neither arch nor vault for me ; 

But lay me in the quiet earth. 

As robeless as I came at birth. 

No slab, or shrine to mark the place — 

O lay me in the spot where springs 

The white cheeked lilly, and the rose, 

Ah, here, in some sweet Greenwood bowery 

Beneath the shade of willow tree, 



POEMS. 61 

Wheie vine around the moss bank clings, 
And let me dream the long, long hour, 
Away from life's unyielding woes ! 

Place for the Dead ! O let me lie 
Beneath the brow of this fair hill, 
Where runs the ever gushing rill 
As softly as an angel's sigh ; 
Here, where the Poet's dust is laid, 
M'Donald,* Bard, of noblest heart — • 
Where sleeps the spotless Indian maid, 
Dohummee, child, unschooled in art— » 
Here by the Lake of Sylvan water. 
Where music, griefs serenest daughter. 
Her harp has on the willow hung ; 
With them, O let me sleep fore'er, 
Where every leaf shall drop a tear. 
When comes the night with half veiled eye. 
And glimmerings from the far off sky. 
Like weepers, to the eaith have sprung. 

Here would I sleep, beside the wave. 
Here have my low and nameless grave. 
Unmarked by aught but earliest flowers ; 
My mourners be the willow leaves, 
The wind that ever seeming grieves 

* M'Donald Clarke. 
5* 



Q2 POEMS. 

Among the folds of summer bowers, 

My spirit song, the voice of birds, 

The brook-fall murmuring mystic words, 

O thus in calm sweet dream away. 

My heart beneath the turf should lay, 

While time with tread of future years, 

But strews its flowers, and friends their tears, 

Upon my Greenwood couch of rest, 

Where angel feet are softly prest, 

No living one so blest as me. 

Who sleeps thus sound and pleasantly. 



[Kl a [P © IL H © M . 

A star is rising from yon isle,* 
That melts not in the morning's smile, 
But sparkles, far away, alone ; 
A glorious star, whose zenith throne 
Shall dazzle yet the gazer's eye. 
Who looks upon the midnight sky 
Where rest the warrior lights of time ; 
For 'mid that throng, and proudly o'er, 
To height unknown, ungained before, 

* Corsica. 



POEMS. 63 

Shall he, a victor, rise sublime, 
And flash his beams on every clime. 

Its birth has not been rocked in blood, 
The Isle v^^hereon the cottage stood, 
Which gave it forth to thrill the world. 
But echoes up the sound of bells. 
Hath flocks in all its quiet dells, 
And answers to the ocean's swells 
With neither trump, or cannon's tongue ; 
No flag is from its rocks unfurled 
To flap the warrior's awful dirge. 
But round its limes the vine has clung. 
The olive tree beside it sprung. 
With many a fearless peasant heart ; 
And every morn the sun's soft glance, 
Hath seen the gay and festive dance 
Amid those sweet and glorious bowers, 
Where lingering love might woo the hours, 
And feel the triumph of her art ; 
While ever}^ eve has only blest 
The honest toiler's hour of rest. 
And flung its moonbeams on the turf, 
Where neither lord, nor vassal serf, 
Have made their low, or lofty bed — 
The same fair couch for all is spread, 
Who from that Isle, but yester-night, 



64 POEMS. 

Did dream would spring such dazzling light, 
As that which now gleams overhead ? 
Yet it hath risen ! a million eyes 
Have seen, and felt it upward rise, 
At first, half dimned in battle haze. 
At last, a wild, and fearful blaze. 
Athwart the heavens in splendor shot ! 
A nation's shout has hailed it first, 
The shells of many empires burst, 
Are now the witness of its stride, 
While trembling tyrants, far and wide. 
Upon the thrones their slaves have wrought. 
With quivering lips have hailed their lord, 
. Have bowed them to the conqueror's sword ; 
While fortress columns shook ajar, 
And crumbled by the touch of war, 
As shoots that star to glory on. 
Proclaim, 'tis thee, Napoleon ! 

As yet a boy, at Toulon's gate. 

He bides the thunder of the fray, 

And half unknown, has hurled away 

The fiery clouds of stormy fate ; 

As yet a boy, his hand hath held 

The gleaming sword, and back expelled 

The foes of France, and nobly won 

The trophy wreath which ci'owns the brave. 



POEMS. Q5 

Which o'er no Barras' brow shall wave, 
Who saw the deed of glory done. 
The haughtiest hearts may tremble back, 
The lion's feet are on their track, 
A few rough strides, the goal is past. 
Aye, e'en beyond the boasted goal. 
Where rests full many a victor's soul, 
The star that gleams to-day, is cast ; 
Where it shall wheel its time, in space, 
And find no power to bar its race, 
'Till it hath wrought a dlieful night. 
Wherein to veil its splendid light, 
And o'er the ruins of its throne. 
Expire, and sink to rest alone ! 

Huzza, O France ! the star is thine. 
And in thy firmament shall shine 
The wonder of the nation's round ; 
The rubicon is far behind. 
Trail captive banners on the wind, 
And kings in chains ignobly bound 
Are conquered in this day of days ; 
The heroes shrink in wild amaze 
And tremble at his awful nod, 
The grown up child of Corsica, 
But yester morn at boyish play. 
Even now, a strange wild Genii god, 



6(5 POEMS. 

Whose breath shall over realms be blown 
And leave them only wastes of dead, 
Whose hands upon the crumbling throne 
Shall press, and hide like age's tread, 
The very wreck of pomp and power, 
The sport of his unpitying hour. 

A garland for the conquerer's brow. 

Hail, France, thy glorious victor son ! 

Toss up your caps, ye dense wieid throngs, 

Burst forth a million triumph songs. 

He comes, he comes. Napoleon ! 

The nation shouts " vive I'Empereur !" 

What tyrant's neck to day is sure, 

What hope of monarchy secure f 

O Danton, Danton, look to thine ! 

And Robespierre, canst thou divine 

'Mid all these chaplets in the air, 

A single rose to deck thy hair f ^ 

Nay ! e'er to-morrow's sun has set. 

Thy blood, the guillotine shall wet. 

And France shall for a day be free. 

Unloosed, Napoleon, by thee ! 

By thee, the star from lonely isle. 

Which rose, and gleamed, and shook the while, 

Then sank behind the chastened world. 

On which its lightnings had been hurled ! 



POEMS. 67 

Ha, France ! art dazzled ? it is well, 
What wildest dream of wizard spell 
Hath seen so strange a time ? 
Wreath after wreath, field after field. 
The mistress of the world must yield. 
And Italy, and Spain, and all 
The nations heed thy trumpet call, 
And bow obsequious to the dust. 
As bow they may, for bow they must ! 
They cannot stem thy battle flood. 
When fields like Austerlitz with blood 
Are half baptized, and left as graves, 
Wherein they sleep, as foes, or slaves ! 
They might as well defy the deep. 
And strive before the tides that leap 
With foaming feet upon the shore, 
And shake the firm earth with their roar. 

A crown upon the conqueror's brow ! 
A consul, king, and hero now. 
To whom the brave have mutely bow'd : 
The Alps are passed, his banners wide, 
Have Russ, and Turk, and Pruss defied, 
And given them many a gory shroud ; 
Count, Wagram's guests, and Jena's dead,j 
And where Aubokir felt his tread, 
O dig beneath the matted sand 



w 



gg POEMS. 

Where Egypt's spires of marble stand, 
Scrape all those sculls in one huge pile, 
And rinse them with the passing Nile — 
Can all the legions of the Czar 
Withstand this fiercely flaming star. 
Withstand this genius, God of war ? 
Nay, let the Swiss with single hand, 
Before the avalanches stand. 
That leap from Jura's misty brow ; 
As he, like chaff must shrink and bow. 
So shall the Russ, and Turk, and Don, 
Kneel down to thee, Napoleon ! 



Earth's hiferarch has even knelt. 

The backs of kings and popes have felt 

Alike, the rod and lash of fate ; 

Lo, France, to-day is strangely great ! 

She stoops a conqueror 'neath the skies, 

Around her triumph arches rise, 

And spoils are trailing at her car 

From palaces, and lands afar. 

All won beneath thy touch and word. 

While fame hangs dazzling from thy swoid ; 

Thou prodigy in human form, 

Thou awful spirit of a storm, 

Whose passing, like the fire steed's heel, 

Made empires on their bases reel, 



POEMS. 



69 



And cast above the spoil of thrones, 
A harvest field of oleachins: bones ! 



'O 



The goals of fabled time are passed, 

And louder sweeps the triumph blast 

Than fiercest age has heard before ; 

In France, the star hath flamed to-day. 

To-morrow, far in blood away 

It lights the Russian hills of snow, 

On Neva's ice has dared to throw 

A mingled look of hate and scorn ; 

Flee, Cossack ! or thy beard is lost. 

Flee, Ural's mountains far across, 

And hide thee, or be rudely shorn ! 

No eye can keep the meteor's path. 

So changeful are its strides of wrath. 

That lands to-day in dreamy rest, 

Ere eve shall by its fire be prest. 

And he who wore this morn a crown. 

Shall bow ere night in suppliance down ; 

While he who sat in dust unknown, 

Shall rise astride the ancient throne, 

A sport. Napoleon, to thee. 

Whose touch and glance is destiny. li& 

Yet thou must wane ; the star shall set, 
Though empires wrapt in flame attend ; 
6 



70 POEMS. 

Though blazing cities are the torch 

That lights him to the midnight porch, 

Where he must into darkness blend ; 

The throe, the awful throe is nigh. 

For Moscow glares upon the sky, 

And on the face of winter grim ; 

While Kremlin sees that star grow dim 

Before the fearful, paling light ; 

An Atlas sinewed frost hath flung 

Its chains, his bannered host among, 

And down descends the omen'd night. 

Thy ashes, Moscow, aie a knell, 

The warrior hears its warning swell. 

And back toward France, through seas of gore, 

Returns to gleam in wrath once more. 

But, hush ! why France in mourning bowled ? 

Her star has passed behind a cloud. 

With gathered strength to rise and spring 

Like Phoenix from its ashy tomb. 

And further up the sky illume, 

Wliere yesterday it wildly blazed, 

While all the world looked on amazed ! 

Can prison isle retain the soul 

Which spurned the nation's battle goal ? 

Can France be widowed in her prime. 

Nor breathe a voice upon the blast — 



POEMS. rjfl 

Can she forget the glorious past, 
Her proudest triumph hour of time ? 
Nay ! all the tongues she hath are blent, 
And madly to the exile sent, 
They bid him rise and gleam again, 
They point him to the fields of slain, 
Where Europe cringed before his tread ; 
He lists, he comes ! O France, 'tis thine ! 
Arise, and be to glory led. 

Huzza ! away from prison isle. 

He treads once more the soil of France, 

What hosts of sabres catch the glance 

The fiery sun hath flung to steel, 

And on before his awful smile 

Of warrior scorn, the nations reel ! 

Rise, Europe ! where's thy manhood now ? 

Rise, or in dust a vassal bow ! 

She bows, while on from throne to throne, 

The giant treads her fields alone. 

Alone ! for what is battle plumed, 

And what the flame and smoke of death. 

That hisses from the cannon breath ; 

The tramp of legions to the fray 

Beside the star, v/hich leads the way, 

Whose blaze hath every land illumed ? 



72 POEMS. 

Aye, from thy prison isle arise, 

Shall Moscow's ruin hide the star, 

Or Elba's princely fetters mar 

The flame that kindled in the skies ? 

Nay ! Europe, come with strength allied, 

Your hosts to-day hath France defied, 

And challenged thee to strife of blood ; 

Roll on your mixed and motley flood, 

The field of Waterloo is won, 

Or sinks to rest Napoleon ! 

Upon that day the fates are hung, 

The ranks of death, to death have sprung, 

Eye gleams to eye, and steel to steel. 

The armies rock, and faint, and reel. 

The victory yet suspended high ; 

The star falls back, a Prussian cloud 

Has like a storm of vengeance bowed. 

Fresh on the conquering arms of France, 

They quiver like a sunset glance. 

The die is lost, the hosts have won, 

Thy star is set, Napoleon I 

France, wail aloud ! thy glory son 
Shall gleam on high for thee no more, 
Eclipsed upon that field of gore 
By others than a Wellington, 
His star has gone in splendor down t 



POEMS. 73 

Nor soon shall earth forget its stride, 

Or cure her chafed and humbled pride, 

And every tyrant on his crown 

Shall henceforth look with less of trust, 

Since he has trampled them to dust ; 

And France — the fame he wrought for thee, 

Shall prouder far than columns be 

Upreared by hands of cringing slaves. 

And over war and tumult's waves, 

Mid all the deeds of battle done, 

Thy star shall be. Napoleon ! 

He sleeps upon the lonely isle, 
Not Corsica or Elbe to-day. 
But in the ocean far away, 
Where southern suns in brightness smile. 
He sleeps, the terror of the world ; 
Like some fierce spirit downward hurled. 
To rest its awful work awhile. 
Helena's rock, the grave of graves. 
Shall hold his dust within her bars, 
Until some kindred earthquake jars. 
And bids his wrathful soul arise ! 
A fitting place — the winds and waves. 
The thunder, and the rocking surge 
Shall blend, and sing the warriors dirge, 
And lightnings flashing from the skies 
6* 



mA r E M s . 

Shall stoop above their brother's rest, 
While feet from every land are prest 
Around the couch of glory's son, 
The Star of France, Napoleon ! 



[F[H@iia]g¥iKigy 



No jagged rock above the ^gean sea, 
Where the unmuffled winds their thunder drums 
Beat to the surge, when its upheaving comes 
To sing its pgean to the midnight cloud ; 
Where lightnings on their fiery wings descend. 
Like spirits from some hidden flame-world, proud, 
To scathe the oak, that only trysting tree 
Where meet the tempest furies of the night, 
And wed their horrors by the dim star-light. 
O'er many a wreck that Hes upon the strand 
Washed by the surf, which tinges with green mould 
The skeletons of navies, in the sand; 
And far adown in the dark slimy waves. 
Where ocean monsters shiver in their caves. 
Buried full deep in their unburthened graves, 
Laughing with icy touch, the winter's cold ! 



POEMS. 75 

Not there lies our Prometheus, all lone, 
With his scarred back upon the pointed stone ; 
And face turned ever to the warring sky, 
So when to-morrow noon shall come, and gaze 
Upon his agony, with burning blaze, 
Its flame shall kindle in his lidless eye ; 
And the red bolts that sometimes hurtle by. 
Upon those tortured balls, their keenness trace, 
Rending the muscles of that quivering face 
With awful pain ! While in his matted hair 
The scorpions have twined, and made their lair ; 
And slimed the very palace of the soul : 
And vultures at his vital's set their goal, 
Where with their beaks they lacerate the heart, 
And strive to tear the life and flesh apart ; 
While he, the chained of ages cannot turn, 
But lives, and feels the hells that ever burn. 
Forcing the sweat of blood from pallid lips ; 
No cooling dew, such as the grey rock sips, 
Descending on his brow from evening skies. 
But there in torment with himself he lies, 
A living death, so spurned, he never dies ! 

Not on Caucasus, on no fabled rock. 
The sport of vengeful gods, who fiend-like, mock 
The victims of their strength, who lie so low, 
Hugging the chains of their unsated woe, 



Yg POEMS. 

Is our Prometheus ! A child upgrown, 
Inured to pain, and toil, and piercing grief; 
The ice of winter, and the summer's fire, 
The desert's famine, and the simoon's breath, 
Disease, and crime, and misery, and death ; 
And all within, around the vital throne 
A sea of tortuous lust, and fierce desire. 
Wrought by himself, and fanned into a flame, 
Before whose light the spirit demons sit, 
Whose robes are woven of the aspen leaf; 
Langour and thirst, and sadness and despair. 
And hate, and scorn, and frenzy with wild air. 
And murder streaming forth her crimson hair. 
An awful progeny ! whose spectres flit 
By the soul's temple door all night, 
Rattling their fetters in the sickly light. 

Aye ! there is he, upon a jagged mount, 

The fearful rock of his own nursing lust ; 

Below him is a sea, a dark, deep sea, 

Lifting its waves in awful majesty. 

Passions that never rest, nor tire, nor die, 

Till in the dimness of eternity 

They turn upon themselves, and sate, and sleep. 

Upon his heart are chains that bear the rust 

Of these six thousand years ; the rust is deep, 

But stronger is the chain of gorgon fold, 



POEMS. 77 

Mocking the foot-prints of the ages mould. 
Above him is the burnhig sky, where thirst, 
By Lazaar winds into a fever nurst, 
Glares down upon his swoln and lidless eye, 
Parching his soul with its intensity ! 
And all around, no spring, no dripping fount 
To bathe his fingers, and his beating brow. 
That rages ever with hot fires, as now. 

There lies, Prometheus, by a Titan hugged 
On a bare rock, to bide the pelting storm ; 
A piteous slave, whose veins with heat are drugg'd, 
A human soul, confined in cringing form. 
To limp, and groan within its prison place. 
And by the fearful workings of its face. 
Its own humanity, almost forswear ! 
Each day, and hour, there hovers in the air 
The dark plumed vulture, waiting for his prey ; 
Prometheus ! thou may'st shudder, far away, 
Listen the spirits who have bound thee fast. 
They leave thee to the sun's ray, and the blast, 
To the fierce beating of the tempest's wing. 
And the eternal gnawing, which shall cling 
Long as thou bearest on thy limbs a chain, 
Gorging thy spirit with the pangs of pain. 

Jove cannot loose thee, nor undo the bond 
Of agony which binds thee to the rock ; 



78 POEMS. 

A law, unalterable as his own fate, 
To which all things created shall respond, 
Bespeaks an endless punishment — lest thou. 
With desperate strength, for the occasion great. 
Resolve within thyself, and from thy brow 
Hurl back the Titan, and undo the chain 
Wrought for thyself, by thy own will supreme, 
And to the sea of passion, speak, be still ! 
Resolve thyself to this, and thou shalt be 
From rock, and tempest, and the vulture, free ; 
And never more shall the dark sky to thee 
Mutter with fearful wrath, and downward fling 
Lightning and hail, upon relentless wing. 
Gnawing thy spirit with unceasing ill ; 
But over thee a calm, like sweetest dream 
Steal soft, and heal the anguish of those wounds, 
Against whose bars, the soul despairing bounds 
Like a caged beast, within a rough cell strong, 
To madness, goaded by its keeper's thong ! 

Arise, Prometheus ! arise, my tortured soul. 

So pictured in that form of agony. 

Which heaves its breast above the Mgea.n sea 

Upon the rock Caucasian ; where uproU 

The waves around its couch, with shrieking tones, 

To drown the music of its awful groans : 

Arise, unbind thyself of chains, be free ! 

Forget thy lust, and on those cheeks, where years 



POEMS. 79 

Before and since the flood, have furrowed deep, 
And ever furrow, channels for thy tears. 
Shall bloom another beauty — up, arise ! 
No demons hinder in the clouded skies. 
Nor monsters who in weedy caverns sit, 
Breathing their mildew spells upon the earth, 
Cursing lull many of our human birth — 
Thou hast the strength to rise, the will, the will ! 
Or thou must struggle in thy prison still. 
And pray on hopelessly, and ever feel 
Deeper within thy heart, the rusting steel. 

Thou wilt not free thyself? then groan, and lie, 
And catch the drippings of the hail and flame ; 
The slime of earth, the torment of the sky, 
Worse than a thousand deaths — and never die ! 
No gods have power to free thee, thou may'st cry 
Forever and forever, none but those 
Who rise with will, and smite their Titan foes, 
Escape the awful punishment — but they. 
Hurling their bonds like smoking flax away, 
Laugh at the vulture, and the forked fire, 
Which wait their victim at the funeral pyre, 
And find him not ! Slaves, none but slaves 
Bend to such lash, and clasp their undug graves ; 
Aye, none but slaves ! Art thou a slave, my soul f 
Then howl upon the rock ! If not, arise, 



gQ POEMS. 

And spurn the fetters of that torture goal, 
And thunder to the furies of the skies, 
" Ho ! I am he, whom ye so long have pained, 
From Caucasus, Prometheus is unchained!" 



[Ki©^a©©s^ 



Lake of the north ! thy spell hath bound 
My weary heart from day to day ; 
And many a thought of thee has found, 
And guiled my soul in dream away — 
The wave's wild dash, the ripple's play. 
Ah, these, as seen in hours gone by, 
Flash on my memory's wistful eye, 
And lead me back with joy to thee, 
The clear, the beautiful, and free ! 

Can absence hide the sparkling spring 
Our lip has touched in olden days, 
Or mar the greenleafed vines that cling 
Around the rock like wreaths of bays. 
On which our eyes were wont to rest ? 

* Lake George. 



POEMS. 31 

Can distance mar the face of friends, 

The fanes their feet with ours have prest — 

Can all that melts and sweetly blends 

Our perished life in one dear dream, 

Be lost, nor more to memory gleam ? 

Then lake of beauty be forgot ! 

But if the dream with us remain, 

If memory lives our life again, 

To me a fond, and holiest spot. 

Be thou of dark but glorious brow ; 

The loved, the dreamed, the treasured now, 

As when in years gone by, my feet, 

With rapture, trod thy hallowed shore. 

And felt the foam clad waves upbeat. 

With might and music in their roar. 

Ah, beauteous lake ! to thee, alone. 
Are given the white and pearly sands. 
With many a green robed island throne 
Where wave the pines their leafy hands ; 
To thee, leap down, the crested lills. 
The gushing of those glorious hills 
Whose tear-drops to thy breast are flung ; 
And wild the strain each breeze hath sung 
Through oak-tree boughs, that stoutly brave. 
From homes of rock, the breathing cloud. 
And proudly up with heads unbowed 



82 POEMS. 

Nod gently to the hymning wave ; 
O yes, to thee, is all the spell 
Which woo's away such heart as mine, 
And bids me back in dream to dwell 
Within those island grots of thine. 

Sweet lake, what memories cling to thee 

Who bore the Indian's light canoe. 

Ere peeped the golden sun-beams through 

The tangled boughs on harvest field ; 

How glorious in that day, when free 

To guide their barques upon thy blue, 

And laughing waves, or moor them fast 

In coves away from storm and blast, 

The men of red and swarthy face, 

That noblest, curst, and blasted race, 

Were lords of thee, and of the shore ; 

How on those isles arose the fane. 

What haughtier lips than here remain 

Grew mute before the unveiled storm. 

Or quivered 'neath the lightning's form 

Which from the darkling cloud hung o'er — 

What loftier brows were here amid 

These rocks, where towered the oak and pine ; 

What songs arose from hearth, and shrine, 

And dells that day in darkness hid, 

In awful mood to Him, who came 



POEMS. 33 

In tempest's breath, and tempest's flame, 
And bid the billows rise, or lie 
In calm beneath the placid sky. 

Ah, never more shall day return. 
Or race like that my verse hath sung, 
The hand of fate, and battle stern, 
Their dirge to thee, and thine have rung ; 
Hence o'er their ashes low and cold, 
A bloodier as^e its robes shall fold. 
The harq^G upon the beach has rotted, 
The wigwam mouldered where it stood, 
Before the peasant's axe, the wood 
It§* beauteous brow has bent toeaith. 
And silence crowns the fane and hearth, 
And hills and vales, with hunters dotted, 
Are robed in mourning weeds to-day ; 
The wind's wild music and the spray, 
Are chaunting in our ears most solemn 
Dirge, and farewell rite to them ; 
Sleepers with no word or column 
Save the tearful cloud, and thunder, 
Who to rock and torrent under 
Wail their lasting lequiem ! 

Yet unto thee a spell remains. 

Though on thy shore are carnage stains, 



84 POEMS. 

And fortress walls in ruin lying 
Where evening winds are ever sighing, 
For freedom still belongs to thee — 
Ay, on yon sloping lawn* I've prest 
The turf o'er many a couch of rest, 
Where sleep our warrior fathers brave ; 
And down beneath the chilly wave 
Their white bones glisten in the sand. 
Where nought but tin of trout hath been ; 
Or yonder, in the mountain's gravel. 
Where only feet of wild beasts travel, 
They bleach and moulder in the sun ; 
The brave and glorious battle men. 
By whom our liberty was won. 
Yet, what are fields of harvest land, 
Where gleam the reapers sickles bright. 
Though waving wheat a golden light 
Flings up to meet the summer's ray, 
When ope's the purple curtained day, 
To woods that crowned the mountain side, 
Or rose majestic in their pride, 
And shook o'er every glen and vale. 
Their scented blossoms to the gale ? 
And what our freedom, which the strong- 
Have only wrested from the weak, 
Our rights built up of hate and wrong, 

* Fort Wm. Henry. 



POEMS. 35 

Too shameless for my tongue to speak — 
With theirs, who lived these crags among, 
In island bowers their matin sung, 
Marred neither rock, nor leaf, nor tree, 
And spurning every bond were free ? 

Ah, give me back the olden day. 
When Horicon tossed up her spray, 
And kissed the forest leaves, that hung 
Like lips of angels, pure and young. 
With many a rose which stooped to lave 
Its blushing face in beauty's wave. 
O give me back the rapturous time 
When thou wert clear as seraph's eye, 
And blue, and bright as yonder sky. 
Whose stars are mirrored here this eve ; 
Ere stain of blood was given to thee, 
Or crosiered priests from eastern clime 
Eore off thy waves beyond the sea : 
Restore the leaf, and rock, and spring, 
The festal song, the wild v/hoop's ring, 
The deer-foot's distant echoing — 
Bid o'er the waters deep and blue, 
Return and glide the light canoe, 
While 'round the wigwam's blazing fire, 
The Indian girl reclines to weave 
A garland for her lover's brow ; 



gQ POEMS. 

And brave, and chief, in hunt or fray, 
Are in the wild wood far away, 
Like mountain eagles on the wing, 
And I could ever bide with thee, 
The clear, the beautiful, the free ! 



WIMDIMIQ, Ih [KIYBSIM 



Parent of good ! who bid'st the sun arise. 

And drink the fragrance of the morning dew ; 

Who givest the earth, of blossom, and the breeze, 

Thou who hast filled the universe with love. 

And made it beautiful for human feet ; 

O, Father, Friend, Protector, sovereign God, 

Accept my worship in this solemn eve ! 

The day has gone to take its wonted sleep, 

Yet lingering on the hill-tops of the east. 

The sun's last glances fading into night, 

Proclaim the hour of fevered toil is o'er. 

O'er all the earth, how still, how wondrous still, 

How hushed the beating of life's noisy heart — 

List ! in the distance echo dies away. 

And the last sound of mirth and revelry. 



POEMS. 37 

Like the low murmuring of the midnight wmd, 

Steals in half mournfully upon the ear. 

Here, from the world, the drunken, drowsy world, 

Lone watchers, with Endymion we come, 

To sit us down beneath the solemn stars. 

And. weave our worship in an evening hymn ! 

O beautiful, most beautiful, arc all things here create ; 
The earth that hath such round and goodly shape, 
The fair green earth, whose mountains kiss the skies, 
And shake their cloudy incense into heaven — 
The earth, within whose arms, these dim old woods, 
Which axe of mortal never yet hath touched. 
Bend to the passing of the summer wind. 
And with their tongues, uncounted as the sands 
That feel the beating of the wrathful surge, 
Send up a song of everlasting praise. 
How beautiful is yonder deep, yon deep. 
Nor line, nor plummet ever fathomed yet. 
Whose waves that break around our city's shores, 
Like some strange anthem from a fabled land. 
Have rolled, and tossed, and flung their leafy spray, 
Through ages, mouldered on the page of time ! 
The wondrous deep, whose tide that booms this eve 
Upon yon fortress, and yon rocky cliff', 
Has lashed the walls of empires now in dust. 
And still majestic, and untired, sweeps on, 



88 POEMS. 

To sing in time, ere yonder stars have set, 
The wane of many monarchy's so fresh to day, 
And chaunt, perhaps, Columbia's funeral dirge. 

Yet not less fair, O mother of these streams, 
That from the mountain leap into the vale, 
And kiss the meadows, and the willow leaves. 
Which bend for baptism in the spotless wave — 
Yet not less fair, O mother of these mists, 
That lift themselves at evening, and descend 
In drops innumerable upon the grass. 
And on the faces of these mute young flowers, 
Which shall to-morrow open their dumb lips. 
And thank their maker with a song of praise. 
O beautiful is all the world ! The universe, 
Which sprang to life when sang the morning stars, 
So lovely then, so glorious, and sublime. 
Though men and nations crumble into dust. 
Bears not a mark of change upon its brow. 
The moon that sitteth queenly in the sky, 
Her azure mantle folded on her breast ; 
The pale, sweet, blue-eyed moon, whose gaze hath 

been 
So shy, yet rapturous on the ocean's face, 
So true these many thousand years, (while man 
Has only loved an hour,) yet fair and tender. 
As when first she threw her silver lustre 



POEMS. 39 

On the fickle wave, rides on ; and the gay stars, 
Undimned by age or storm, still flash afar, 
Proud, lofty, and serene as on that morn. 
When first their jewelled feet, began with music 
The great march of time. 

To-night, O God, 
My worship let me bring ; let me unloose 
The garner of my soul, and on the air, 
Which has a thousand tongues, as to some 
Trusty messenger, breathe out the incense 
I have kept for heaven ! O, there are altars 
In all human hearts, in every field, and every 
Forest depth, shrines which no hands have built, 
Where far away, beyond the rocky hills. 
The Indian pauses, weary from his chase, 
And kneeling on the mossy lap of earth, 
With sounds of brook-falls murmuring in his ear, 
Looks fondly upward from his couch of flowers, 
Through the green branches of the giant trees, 
And to the sun, and to the passing cloud, 
His maker's heralds in the summer sky. 
Makes low obeisance ! And blessed are such fanes, 
And holy too, such noon-day sacrifice. 
And there are shrines, and temples built with hands, 
Where, regular as Memnon's statue woke, 
And breathed its music to the purple dawn. 



90 POEMS. 

Come up the stated worshippers of time, 

To dip their fingers in the font of hfe, 

And bend their knees in attitude of prayer ! 

Aye, lofty temples, and magnificent ; 

Whose spires have gleamed amid the warring storm, 

And braved the ravages of centuiies. 

Aye, altars cushioned with the crimson cloths. 

Borne from far lands, and sprinkled o'er with spice ; 

Too fair, too pure, too costly for the touch 

Of common lips, and lowly feet profane ! 

There worship the great nabobs of the earth. 
The laced, and powdered, and perfumed of time ! 
'Tis well, but neither temple with its gleaming spire, 
Nor noon-day sacrifice in yonder wood, 
Has aught so solemn as this evening hour. 
No worship, like the worship oflfered here. 
O, hence ! hence ! hence ! poor noisy world, 
I have a conference with the King of Kings ! 
'Tis fit, 'tis meet, the scene, the hour, my soul — 
The day lies fevered on its dreamy bed. 
Poor day of dust, and misery, and death ; 
Its flaming lamp is quenched by nature's hand. 
And lo, around me comes the curtained night. 
Majestically marshalled by the stars ! 
Hush ! be not rude, the angels hover near, 
And wait our evening sacrifice. We come, 



ai' 



POEMS. 91 

Lord, God, Almighty, listen to our song ! 
The winds are silent, and the leaves, and yonder 
Stream upon whose crystal wave, the ships of 
Commerce flap their wings, and ocean with its tides, 
And surges which at morn, rose up like mountains 
Bellowing to the sky, all lulled to silentness, 
And sleep. 

Above me, like an army, pass 
The clouds, waving their misty banners on 
The air ; beneath me earth, like a young 
Angel's bride, has closer prest the violets 
To her bosom, while the grass, and sweet young 

flowers. 
Voluptuously smiling with their crimson lips 
As died the last gay sun-beam in the west. 
With tearful eyes have sung their twilight hymn. 
O, Father, let me be most reverent at this hour. 
While on my ear, the murmuring ocean breaks, 
With music lofty as infinitude ; 
While yonder stars go trailing through the sky. 
And Dian stooping from her azure throne. 
Kneels in the shadowy temple of the night, 
And veils her brow with loveliness serene ; 
O, let me not beneath their holy calm, 
Me, dust and ashes of this ruder world, 
Forget my worship, and my evening hymn ! 



Q2 P E JI S . 

Forget, forget ! the very air is rife 

With wings, and tongues, and songs most eloquent ; 

The slightest leaf or bud on yonder bough. 

Has turned to heaven, its mute adoring face, 

And through its dew drops, whispered to the wind 

Its speechless aspirations ! O, let me 

Not forget, while these dumb lips, the shadows 

Of thy presence, hover near, that I, a soul, 

Sublimer than the stars, than aught of passing. 

Perishable make, have thought, and tongue, 

And speech to weave thy praise. 

Low, to the dust, 
I bend my sweated brow, how cool, how 
Glorious comes the evening wind ; calm is 1 
The throbbing of my fevered pulse, the earth 
Retreating fades beneath my feet, while angel 
Shapes, with music not of time, bear my rapt 
Spirit to its native land ! Thrice happy hour. 
How poor, and mean, the trappings of low life, 
How utter worthless all its golden dreams, 
The scum, the fever, and the dross of time ; 
How, like a phantom on the winter blast, 
A hollow sound, and echo, long, long lost. 
Pass in review the wrecks of many years. 
The days of dust, and heart consuming toil. 
Before the gloiy of this silent eve ! 



POEMS. 93 

O, who of ye, poor pleasure cankered throng, 
Would give this moment, and a fresh, free soul, 
For all the pageant of a thousand years ? 
O, who would change a heart unseared with crime? 
A fragrant couch amid these hymning flowers, 
Beneath the heaven and its uncounted stars, 
With winds and waves, as our conversant friends, 
For the dread burthen of an achina: soul, 
With thrones of monarchies to stool our feet, 
And an eternity of summer suns f 

O, why is there such misery in this world ? 
This matchless, glorious world, which might be 
Eden, if the hand of man, forsook not 
Nature for unholy war, whose crimson'd sword, 
Ambition, pride, and lust, have steeped and 
Feasted upon human gore ! Why need 
To-morrow's sun, aiise above an earth 
Of wretchedness and wo ? Its fairest gardens 
Turned to pools of blood, its brightest beauty 
Scarred by cannon flame ! O, why must these 
Green fields, bear thistles and sharp thorns, 
And famine, pestilence, and death, three headless 
Monsters ever in our midst, make e'en the 
Fane, their reckless slaughter place f 
Can'st tell me this, O sage philosopher-— 
Or thou, great oracle — Or gifted bard ? 
8 



g4 F O E M S . 

Can'st tell me why, with these unbounded fields* 

As yet untrodden by the loot of man, 

Fields only waiting for the pilgrim's axe, 

To change their waste, and blossom with the rose, 

We may not have our paradise of flowers, 

And be the god-like our first parents were ? 

Within thy bosom, lies the curse, O, man ! 
Above the early worship of thy race, 
Pale fiends have reared their altars on the heart. 
What is the story of thy wants to-day ? 
A peaceful cottage in the orange grove, 
A mountain pasture for thy happy flocks, 
A shrine within some unpolluted bower, 
Where only zephyrs, and the rippling spring, 
Companions glorious of the loving soul. 
Might bear thee witness to the ear of Clod ? 
Say, are thy wants prescribed by yonder vale, 
Can'st thou amid its ever springing grass, 
Amid the foliage of the spicy trees. 
With all of beauty that the world hath seen. 
And all that panders to the human lasle, 
Kneel down beside the blue-eyed violet. 
Which only asks the sunshine, and the dew, 
And say beneath the twinkling of the stars, 
O God, my Father, I am fully blest f 
Nay ! hke a lie 'twould curdle on thy lips. 
The heart is not with plenty satisfied — 



POEMS. 95 

What need'st thou more than this unrivalled light 
Which streams at noon-day on the speaking earth, 
The shadowy evening with its golden dreams, 
And all this plenty bursting at thy feet ? 
It were enough, with an unspotted soul, 
To make thee loftier than the proudest king. 
B'Jt, nay ! within the temple of thy heart, 
Another altar than the living God's, 
Another shrine than this green budding earth, 
Is reared, and asks the spirit's sacrifice! 

Who says " Lord, God, I worship only Thee, 
Thee, and this wondrous universe of Thine?" 
There may be some beyond the western hills. 
Or 'mong the ice-bergs of the furthest north. 
Where civilization has not yet defiled, 
And steeped the lips of worship men with crime : 
Some free born souls, as they were born, yet free ! 
Who asks no more than blossoms in this woildf 
And yield their homage for so great a gift. 
I see the fane, where throng our million feet 
To offer blasphemy instead of prayer : 
Not in some charmed, and Genii haunted vafet 
Where, as the evening gathers on its robes. 
Strange voices break in murmurs on our ear, 
Like angels lisping to their fallen kin 
With vi^ords of peace— 



gg POEMS. 

Nay ! in thy breast, O passion-fevered man, 
Has lust, and pride, and low rebelling hate, 
Built up a shrine. Upon it, sits a god, 
A demon-god, beneath whose iron tread. 
The flowers of Hfe are blighted into thorns, 
And all the joys, and glories of the heart, 
Turn back to sling, and wither in the soul. 
No new strange idol chosen foi to-day. 
But one installed and crowned by eldest time, 
"When past antiquity was but a child. 

That god, is name ! for whose embrace, 
Friend Milton's devil, challenged the Supreme, 
And fell from heaven to the infernal world. 
Nor he alone ! from Adam's day to ours. 
This mighty throng of which we are but sands, 
These seven hundred million living souls, 
Have offered up their worship at its feet. 
Exhume the kings who sleep in pyramids, 
The haughty conquerers of forgotten times. 
And ask their ashes sifted by the winds, 
To whom they gave their homage in this world ? 
Like thunder loosened from the rotten cloud. 
Or voice of surges breaking on the shore, 
Bursts from the dust which lies beneath our feet, 
Name, only name ! For this, Sesostris wrote 
Upon his trophy pillars in the east, 



POEMS. 97 

** Behold the king of kings, and lord of lords 1" 
For this, beyond the Indus, Alexander went, 
The spoils of nations trailing at his heels ; 
So when the earih had yielded to his arms, 
And he had dug the graves of all her kings. 
Like some fierce gorgon gloating o'er his spoil, 
He might sit down and weep at slaughter's goal ! 

Great God ! are not thy temples built by love. 
And all thy altars consecrate to peace ? 
But what are these, the crimson battle fields, 
Where warrior men have been baptised in gore — 
These columns frownins: over fortress walls, 
Upon whose sides are glory deeds inscribed ? 
Are these the feet of loving worshippers. 
These Vandals thundering at the gates of RomeJ 
Is this her penance, mistress of the world, 
To lead her legions to the Xerxes throne. 
Or o'er the Adriatic, to unfurl 
The standard of a thousand victories ! 
And thou mad Timur-Lame, who gloried once 
In caging monarchs captive at thy feet, 
Did'st thou not worship at the altar name ? 
Let kings and Caesars sleep 1 they will not bear 
Such fearful witness to their deeds of blood! 
Call up the bones of armies, and of slaves, 
That bleach from China to Pacific's shores, 
8* 



0g POEMS. 

The many hundred millions who have bowed 
And made to kings their obsequies in dust ; 
Ask them, the sleepers in Tartar sands, 
Or those who lie beneath the Persian turf, 
Or on the festered fields of Italy — 
Go ask the valley's where the Cortez passed 
And left but blackness and a ruin sear, 
Where lie the Montezumas, and their kin ; 
Or if ye like, to these red fertile spots, 
Aubokir, Austerlitz, and Wateiloo ! 
"What word have ye, pale clanking hosts of slain, 
To whom, gave up your master's homage here ? 

Hark ! like a fire-storm rending the still earth. 

Or tramp of old volcanoes roused to life, 

From every hill, and every vale they come, 

More than the eye a thousand times can see. 

So awful still, so grim, and terrible ! 

Above them w^ave their banners, thick as leaves 

Unseared by autumn in an orange gruve. 

But hush'd, the trump, the war horse neigh, the drum. 

The shout which rang above the clash cf helms. 

As on, from north, south, east, and west they tread, 

Their arms reversed, while from their bony eyes. 

As memory wakes the hour they grappled death. 

And bears the v/ail of homes left desolate. 

Shoot tears of flame ! These are thy victims, w^ar ! 



FOEMS. 99 

These, waiting for the summons of the judgment-day, 
With all their sins and scars upon their heads, 
O lust, and pride, are your great sacrifice ; 
These, are the offerings at thy altar, name ! 
What wonder then, that there is wo and want. 
When war's red trophies crown our harvest fields, 
And names of heroes fill the peasant's song ? 
What wonder, when thy altars, God, are scorned. 
And earth, made glorious for a worship place. 
With love, and peace, are changed for bitter hate. 
And all our offerings sacrificed to name f 

Poor, low, mean name ! pray what is it ? 

A few brief letters on yon gilded sign, 

Letters, an age may change, or rot away. 

For which we toiled our life time to engrave ! 

But the beginning of an epitaph. 

Which, when the death cart rumbles on its round. 

And strangers wrap our corpses in their shrouds. 

And hang above us the black loathsome pall. 

Shall, by some executor of our will. 

Some friend, perhaps^ be taken from the board 

And chiselled on our marble for a day. 

Ho ! ye wild bristling crowds, with swiftest feet, 

Rush to your altars, and your hearths ; 

Into the closets, where your idols lie. 

Mind not the stars, nor golden clouds, nor earth, 



IQO POEMS. 

Nor aught of joy or plenty in the world ; 

But hug your gold ere it shall turn to dross, 

Hug all your titles, and estates, and names. 

Aye ! do it e'er to-morrow's sun shall rise. 

For then, aye, then! a craped and mocking crowd, 

Doing but shabby reverence to thy dust. 

Shall bear thee to the churchyard, let thee down, 

And as the turf thumps on thy coffin fid, 

Scattering their precious tears upon ihy grave, 

Shall turn and leave thee to oblivion, 

Till stirred by sexton's shovel, or the trump. 

How vain and impotent such worship, man ! 

How weak the titles that like useless weeds 

Hang to the rotten mantle of renown ; 

The Nelson pillars, and the Caesar shrines — 

How cursed the glancing of that awful star. 

That bloody meteor in the sky of time. 

Which flashed athwart the nations, 'til they shook, 

And heaved their fiery vomit on the world. 

Ye may not measure it ye human fiends. 

Till crowding to the muster of the last great day. 

Rise up the armies of the earth and sea, 

Mailed, bannered as they fell, more than the earth 

An hundred times can hold ! 

Then, when around the pyramids. 

The slaves who built them for tyrannic kings. 



POEMS. IQl 

•» 

Millions on millions, thronging in their chains, 
Gather with hollow clanking to their place — 
When thev who followed heroes to the field, 
A host innumerous as the ocean sands, 
Tramp in firm phalanx to the last review — 
When priests, and bards, and orators of fame, 
With laurel crisped upon their pallid brows, 
Stand trembling, speechless, at their Maker's throne. 
With nothing in their hands but withered leaves. 
Then ! may ^^e reckon how much worth was name. 

But we must cease ! O, God, as Thou art just, 
Be merciful to man in the last day. 
Ye fellow pilgrims in this march of life. 
Come from the stormy battle of the world. 
The path of conflict, and the gory field ; 
Come out of Sodom, e'er the avenging fires 
Of famine, pestilence, and crime, rain down 
Their molten lava on unsheltered heads ! 
The earth is wide, the earth is green and fair, 
A noble dwelling-place, a noble fane- — 
What need we more, if with good hearts we turn 
Each to his field, and clip our harvests down ; 
If war's red emblems are forgotten left 
To rot beside the trophies she has reared .'' 
There need not pine a single human soul, 
Beyond the mountains of the golden west 



1 02 POEMS. 

Lie endless fields which court the toiler's feet ; 
Fields wasting fragrance on the summer wind. 

O let us rise with stouler hearts to-day, 

Leave these dark cities full of pestilence, 

And in the valleys, on the mountain side, 

Build up our cottage in some spicy shade ; 

Where to the music of the leaping spring. 

The song of birds, and the gay blush of flowers, 

Our souls may worship and be full of joy. 

All else is lost ! the day shall come and go, 

The bright-eyed stars perform their endless march, 

While thrones and empires crumbling to the dust, 

With all their rude old monuments defaced, 

Leave not an echo for the ear of time. 

Of what avail in yon long waste of years 

Marred to my vision through succeeding age, 

Will be our toil, and sacrifice to name ? 

Of what avail, when generations tread 

The turf that lies above our rotted bones, 

And make their merriment around our graves — 

When other times less foolish than oqr own, 

Shall wonder we but lived, to write our epitaph ? 

O let U3 turn, nor longer spurn the earth. 

Our eldest mother, in whose bounteous lap 

Lie all things needed by the heart of man! 

Let us so mould the pilgrimage of life, 



POEMS. 1 OS 

That \Vben the sun has journeyed his last round, 
"When earth grown weary of her ancient course, 
Flies to her couch in chaos whence she came | 
And God h^s candles blotting from the sky. 
Leaves time to take its everlasting veil, 
"We may from our long sleeping night arise, 
To taste the splendor of a better morn. 
And weave above the passing tv^ilight shades 
Our endless hymn ! 



Wlh-©©W-TIhm°EEa* 



There's sadness by Cow-Hick-ee'sf hearth, 
The brave has lost his heart of mirth, 
The lip that quivered not, nor paled. 
And e'en the black and flashing eye. 
Changed by the touch of destiny. 
Are notes of grief — and words of wail 
That rise on every forest gale, 
Proclaim how deep the wo is felt, 
How stern and sure the blow was dealt ! 

* One who holds converse with the Great-Spirit, t An Iowa Chief. 



104 POEMS. 

Why does he wail, Cow-Hick-ee, brave ? 
Is not his home amid the wood, 
Where there is neither bond, nor slave — 
Where, free as yonder oaks that wave 
Above the storm clad mountain's brow. 
His soul may mock the winds that bow 
The fearful pale face to the dust ? 
Cow-hick-ee's fane is by the rock. 
Which bides and bears the tempest's shock, 
An altar piled with leaves, and rude, 
As far in forest solitude 
Our primal genii builds his throne ; 
There, when the twilight waves her pall. 
When birds their mates to shelter call, 
By sound of murmuring waterfall, 
Cow-Hick-ee, glides to prayer alone. 

His wigwam rests in yonder glen. 
Where pale-face's foot hath seldom been. 
The tender trees which form the grove. 
Are bent, with branches interwove. 
Rough bark the sides and top protect. 
And on the earth, its simple floor, 
The autumn leaves with moss are strown ; 
His bow hangs close above the door, 
The quiver by its side is prest. 
And there the tomahawk at rest. 



POEMS. 1 05 

Bids friends fear not, and foes beware ! 

Nor rouse the lion from his lair, 
Whose mood is gentle, 'till hath sprung 
The foe upon him, or his young. 

Why then thy grief, O, Cow-hick-ee ? 
The wigwam and the fane are free, 
And thou art young, and fair, and brave ; 
Where far Iowa's forests wave, 
A lighter foot has never strayed 
In chace, or romp with Indian maid, 
Nor stronger arm the battle blade 
In war-path bore, to taunt the foe ; 
Nor surer arrow sped its blow 
To heart of him who came for wrong, 
Nor freer heart, nor bolder tongue. 
The welcome, or the challenge flung, 
Than Cow-hick-ee's, who sits alone 
Beside his hearth or altar stone. 
And to the murmuring of the gale, 
Pours forth his low and solemn wail ! 

** Ah, woe is me ! my bride is dead. 
And far beneath the pale-face' tread 
She lies beside the ocean shore,* 
To bless my arms and hearth no more !" 

* In Greenwood. 

9 



Well doth he wail ! what heart is still 
Thus wTecked with grief, and lashed with ill- 
Mourns not the bird its fallen nfiate, 
Is not the nest left desolate, 
When one hath drooped its feeble wing ? 
Aye, long around his home of vines, 
He sits upon the tree and pines, 
And knows no joy till in the skies, 
In blissful hour the lost he spies ! 
Mourns not the lion in his lair. 
When she, who bore with him a share 
Of grief, or joy, in froHc play, 
Is snatched by death from him away ? 
How wake the woods, with echoes loud, 
The monarch of the forest, bowed, 
Roars for his mate for days in vain, 
Ere he returns to lair again ! 
So Cow-hick-ee, his bride bewails, 
His spirit sinks, and slowly pales 
His lip and brow, before so free, 
For her, his perished Do-hum-mee ! 

Do-hum-mee* was L'Wa's pride, 
A fairer rose hath never sprung 
The forest glens, or rocks among, 

* An Indian Princess. 



POEMS. 107 

Than she, the sweet young Indian maid, 
Whose childhood in the wood was played, 
Where bends the fern, and towers the pine, 
Dressed in its robes of leaf and vine, 
By many a murmuring streamlet's side- 
There, far away, the princess grew, 
As lovely as the hare-bell blue, 
Which only drinks the morning dew, 
And smiles from lise to set of sun ; 
Like silken threads, her waving hair 
Streamed loose upon (he taintless air, 
Her deep black eye shot forth a flame 
With power the strongest heait to tame, 
And make it vassal at her will — 
Her cheeks were fair as roses blown 
Upon some mossy hillock thrown. 
And when she smiled, they dimpled o'er 
Like sun-gilt waves ihat kiss the shore. 
And cast, when rufl^ed b}^ the breeze, 
A sheen upon \he bending trees, 
Which seem to stoop with ravished gaze, 
As on the shining ripple plays — 
Her tread was light as frighted deer's 
Whose leap o'er chasm, and brushwood clears, 
Who snuffs in haste the mountain gale, 
While dog and hunter wend the vale — 
Her heart was warm, and pure, and free, 



JQg POEMS. 

The dwelling of simplicit}'', 

Where every want might come and make 

Its prayer for love and virtue's sake ; 

And none were turned with scorn away 

Who bent before her shrine to pray — 

Her voice was sweet, and deep, and shrill, 

The hunter felt his bosom thrill 

Who heard her song at morning dawn, 

Ere from the leaves the dew was gone, 

As forth a gushing hearted child 

She sang amid her native wild. 

Nan-nouce Push-e-toe* was her sire, 
A noble king, whose heart of fire 
Was stout as is the mountain oak. 
Which bides the tempest's fire and smoke, 
And sits upon the ancient rock, 
Where it hath felt the thunder shock 
Of years, nor quailed — so sitteth he, 
Nan-nouce Push-e-toe, strong and free ! 
The pale-face' tread he heedeth not, 
Whose hand the torch of war hath brought, 
But friendlier soul hath never held 
The pipe of peace, or given relief 
To want, than he, Iowa's chief; 
Who though his race is far expelled 

* The buffalo king. 



POEMS. 1Q9 

From pleasant lands ihey held of yore, 
Bears strangely meek, the wrongs they bore ! 

Dear to his soul was Do-hum-mee, 
As vine haih clung to forest tree, 
So clung slie to her father's side ; 
So grew she up her father's pride, 
Iowa's rose, 'lil Cow-hick-ee 
Had won, and wed her as his bride — 
'Not in the wood the knot was tied. 
But far amid the pale-face' homes. 
Where ocean's tide with thunder comes, 
'Mid spires and turrets shooting high, 
In clime, where beams a softer sky, 
The sire, the lover, and the maid. 
To see their ancient lands had strayed ; 
And there in halls by strangers reared, 
The two fond hearts, by love endeared 
And knit in other days, were bound ! 
Do-hum-mee was no more a child, 
No more an Indian maiden wild. 
To run and shout the loud halloo, 
And fearless urge the light canoe — 
Cow-hick-ee claimed the rose his own, 
He plucked it from the monarch's throne. 
The chieftain smiled, and freely gave 
The rose he cherished to the Brave ! 
9* 



JJQ POEMS. 

What joy belongs to Cow-hick-ee, 

What deep, deep bliss to Do-hum-mee ; 

The dream is full, the spell is deep, 

O may they long such revel keep, 

The revel of ecstatic souls. 

No darkness mars, no woe controls. 

Ah, who hath seen a pleasant day 

Turn dark at noon, and pass away, 

As storm and whirlwind hurtled by — 

So joy hath fled, so grief is nigh ! 

A few short days — the rose grew pale, 

Its leaves were bhghted by the gale. 

It closed its lips, and bowed its head, 

Though friends were watching by its bed, 

And trembling on its stem, it died ! 

Aye, she, Cow-hick-ee's bride, is dead ! 
Away from home her eye grew dim, 
A beauteous leaf from forest limb, 
Blown forth to wither and to blisht ; 
How deep the blow, how fierce the smart, 
Which rankles in the warrior's heart ; 
The light of day has closed to him, 
Do-hum-mee was his morning star. 
And thus to loose in lands afar 
Her soft sweet glance, unmans his soul 
With grief his heart may not control — 



POEMS. IJl 

And Nan-nouce Push-e-toe hath wailed, 
The rose is gone he loved so well, 
And in his bosom sounds the knell 
Of nian}^ ^j^^^J ^^^ ^^^^ before, 
Now buried by the ocean shore ; 
Where they have laid his own to rest, 
And o'er her spotless ashes pressed 
The turf, with flowers and willows veiled ! 

Yet, though in stranger land she died. 
That fond fair giil, that gentle bride. 
Warm hearts were by her couch and bier, 
And weeping eyes gave up the tear 
Of pity deep, and love sincere — 
Ah, there was one, a pale-face good, 
Who loves the red-race of the wood ; 
A woman, with a noble heart. 
Who watched the fading rose at morn, 
And fanned its leaves at noon and eve ; 
Who grieved to see the beauteous grieve 
By sickness paled, and bowed, and worn — 
With soul o'er full, a sister's part 
To that fair one in grief she bore. 
Knelt by her side, bent fondly o'er, 
And prayed most deep and fervently. 
That God would spare her Do-hum-mee ! 



J 12 POEMS. 

Wa-con-tam* was the pale-face' name, 

A woman loved, and known to fame, 

With auburn hair and beaming eyes, 

A heart of purest sympathies, 

An open hand, when suffering came, 

Or want's low wail, or sorrow's cries ; 

A soul lit up by strongest flame 

Of pity, hope and love supreme, 

A woman, such as in our dream 

Sometimes on angel wings descend, 

The low and helpless to befriend ! 

How well she nursed that drooping rose, 

From day to day she soothed its woes, 

No mother o'er her child hath stood 

With holier love, or sadder mood ; 

No sister by a sister's bed 

Bowed down with deeper grief her head, 

Than she, the guardian angel sent 

To pour the oil of balm, and close 

Those eyes which flashed their forest fire 

On stranger faces, far away, 

From where her childhood's hours were spent, 

That bride, with sickness lowly bent 

To pale, and quiver, and expire, 

Far, far from pleasant Iowa ! 

*Given te Mrs. C. M. Sawyer by the Indians. 



POEMS. 113 

Wa-con-tam watched her parting breath, 
Stooped o'er her body chilled by death, 
And robed her for the dreamless rest ; 
And saw her borne with many a wail 
To Greenwood's sweetest sylvan vale, 
Where lies the fresh turf on her breast — 
A beauteous spot, 'mong bending trees, 
Where softly comes the murmuring breeze. 
To fan the leaves and flowers that wave 
Above so fair and fresh a grave. 
And there, a woman's love has reared 
The speaking marble o'er her dust. 
To whisper of the sacred trust 
Which lies below, to friends endeared ! 
There, when the stranger's eye shall trace 
Beside the silent lake* of blue, 
A monument, upon whose side 
A chiselled foim hath bowed its face, 
(Cow-hick-ee, wailing for his bride,) 
With broken bow, and quiver flung 
Away from shoulder where it hung. 
Remember 'twas Wa-con-tam, who, 
Above Do-hum-mee's couch of rest, 
Reared up the maible o'er her breast. 

* Sylvan Lake, at Greenwood. 



114 POEMS. 

Long shall the pale-face' love be kept 

A talisman in woods afar, 

And when the brave goes forth to war, 

Or to the chase, Wa-con -tarn-ee, 

His spell for danger's hour shall be. 

Cow-hick-ee loves her true and well, 

And Nan-nouce Push-e-toe can tell. 

What gentle woman, to his child, 

Came like a spirit, in that day 

Which bore her to the dust away ; 

And brave and squaw will sing her name. 

And teach their young to speak her fame, 

Who, often, where the willows wave. 

Stoops down beside Do-hum-mee's grave ! 



M © [L a M © 



Measure her if thou canst ! that wondrous Isle, 
At once the giant, and the drone of earth ; 
The outer side of Rome when she was powder, 
Crimsoned since Caesar's day with blood ! 
The apex now of monarchy, whose smile 



foEMS. 115 

Lights the lone mistress of the olden world, 

And flings on many a venerable pile 

(The glory and the pomp ot ancient birth,) 

The lustre of her proud echpse — while far unfurled 

Her banners wave beyond the Indus ; aye, this hour 

She laughs the conquests of the Greek to scorn, 

And o'er the flags of many nations, torn, 

Offers her morning sacrifice to war, 

"With her drums music of unceasing roll; 

Lining the edges of the earth afar 

From the bleak ice-hill, to the southern pole ! 

The history of the world shall never know 

A stranger, grander, or more despot land ; 

The tyrant of the tyrannous, whose hand 

Is red wiih age's gore, whose battle blow 

Has glanced upon the head of every state. 

Some crushing into atoms — some made slaves, 

And left henceforth to drag their heavy chains 

Behind her triumph car, or to the strains 

Of her steed's steel hoofs fiercely ringing, 

Kept "Hail, Britannia!" round her orgies singing; 

She pano[)lied ibe while with smoke and slaughter, 

Victor of terra firma — on the water, 

Boasting herself the glory and the queen ; 

And striding forth with an unaltered mien. 

Until an off'-cast child from the dim west, 



116 POEMS. 

Struggled and tore the laurel from her breast — 
Aye ! from its mother's breast, whose iron thong 
Sat on its back too heavily; since then, less strong, 
But not less willing to beat down, and press 
The faltering of the nations, to oppress, 
And build her glory on the wane of realms, 
The visored army of her might overwhelms ! 

Most liberal of speech, as tyrants are. 
Who aim at empire's universal sway ; 
Her blood-red hand unlooses bonds to-day, 
Lifting the brows of a down trodden race, 
Where group the fertile islands of the sea; 
To-morrow, by the smell of battle, we. 
The rattling of her iron chains may trace 
In the far Indian clime, whose torrid air 
Is fevered with the sulphurous fumes of war! 
So pushes she her conquest — so she plays 
The desperate game of her consummate lust, 
And on the nations whom she trcods to dust, 
The aw^ful tribute of her vengeance lays — 
Escape it, ye, who can ! Escape the car 
Where ride her Cesar's o'er the fields of slain, 
Draooino their millions in the victor train. 

She was our mother, shall the child be still 
When she hath sported with infanticide ? 



POEMS. JIY 

Nay, let me speak ! were it a trumpet shrill, 

This voice of mine, I'd send it far and wide, 

To taunt the progress of her bloody stride: 

America is free ! the young and fair. 

And she may thank her own true warrior steel, 

And the great God of battles ! England's heel 

Would fain have trampled her into the earth, 

And o'er her ruin, with ferocious mirth, 

Built up her funeral pyre, and laid 

The freedom of the quailing world, arrayed 

In gory robes, upon the altar low. 

And burned it with malicious triumph slow. 

The stars be thanked ! America arose, 

And cauQ:ht with fearless breast the murder blow— 

Flung off such guilty parentage, and made 

Herself the asylum of the oppressed ; 

The light, the pomp, the glory of the west. 

The chosen of all empires, proudest, best ; 

The lion's curber, over land or sea. 

The home, the fane, the palace of the free ! 

Would Ireland were so fortunate ! the years 
Of seven long centuries, have bound her fast 
Beneath the clutch of the oppressor, she. 
Yet stoops and writhes in her great agony, 
And calls upon her fallen, who are mute — 
And veils her face in mourning, while her tears 
10 



22g POEMS. 

Moisten the grave where sleeps the mighty past, 
Whose seed shall yet spring foith to ripened fruit, 
And break, I pray, the chain ; whose ring, at last. 
Will be her Emmet's epitaph ! 

And thou, 
Forger of chains and vassalage, O Isle ! 
Ungird thyself of armor, or gird on ; 
The fearful throv/ which thou hast played the while, 
Shall from thy stained and lucky grasp be won, 
And o'er thy empire will be triumph'd tis done ! 
England — within thyself, the fires are now 
Kindled to flame ; and groans, and cries 
Of thy own tortured, rising to the skies, 
Call loud upon the living God— who will chastise 
Thy monstrous villany, and heap thy guilt 
With all the blood which thou hast ever spilt. 
In rivetting those chains upon thy head ; 
Aye, e'en to-morrow shall the sword of fate 
Alter the spirit of thy destiny, from great 
To alow bier, with pall like midnight cloud ; 
Where from the temple of thy empire proud. 
The gilded head of royalty unbowed 
Before, shall bow ! They will not long be slaves 
Who bear thy banner, and thy battle steel ; 
They will not cringe beneath a master's heel 
Who guard his Augean gates, and bring 



POEMS. Jjg 

The bread for which they starve, to fat a king 
And his ignoble progeny — while they, 
Whisper with pallid lips, or mutely pray 
Hopeless of succour — nay ! they will arise 
Like Britian's heroes of the ancient day 
To fling the trappings of the throne away, 
An while in dust the iron collar rings, 
Reclaim their freedom from tyrannic kings ! 



Love has its stages — Old Play. 



Who will picture forth my Lelia, 
Lelifi, fairest of the throng ! 
Mary, Sarah, or Amelia, 
All the Daphnean groves among ; 
She, the gayest, sweetest blossom, 
Smiling 'neath the summer skies. 
Glorious lips, and swelling bosom, 
Golden hair, and sparkling eyes, 
Softly breathing amorous sighs ; 
While the doves around are cooing, 



120 POEMS. 

And the simple lovers wooing, 
Hold the moonbeams in surprise ! 

Lovely, dear, enchanting girl, 
Like a heavenly goddess straying; 
Or a morning sunbeam playing 
In our fairy temple's portal- 
Bosom like two hills of pearl, 
Seemly fiom their prison saying, 
" Come, my youth, with me a Maying, 
Come and taste of love immortal." 
Rose of Peri, on my dreaming 
Like the gaze of Houri's beaming, 
Leave my heart, O leave my heart ! 
Tempt me not from my good mother, 
I have sister, I have brother. 
Must I from the cottage part. 
Where I twined the wreath, and gave it 
To the peasant lassie lowly ? 
Shall I meet the charm, and brave it. 
Or the garland dash awa}'^ — 
Garland which her fingers holy 
Bound upon my brow one day ? 

O, my Lelia, I am maddened. 
Love like thine must be supreme ; 



POEMS. 121 

How the captive heart is gladdened 
When such eyes upon it gleam, 
How their flashing makes me quiver, 
As the light wind on the rive r 
Ripples up the sleeping waves ; 
How the spirit, half repining, 
Rises 'neath their glorious spell. 
Now no more in dimness shining. 
But like coral in the caves 
Where the ocean surges swell, 
Flashing back thy beauty's brightness, 
With a song of joy and lightness ; 
Ever thus, by love inspired. 
Ever thus, by fondness fired. 
O'er our dreams and fancies poring. 
And our ideal heart adoring. 

Be my broken vow forgiven, 
Who can 'scape the witching charm ? 
Have not all the gods in heaven. 
Smiles of love unto her given, 
Who, did Mars himself disarm f 
O, farewell, thou smiling valley 
Where I gave my worship first, 
Where with love I dared to dally, 
Dreaming not I should be curst — 
Long adieu, old hearth and altar, 
10* 



122 POEMS. 

Kindling eyes on childhood smiling, 

I am bound with love's beguiling, 

Ah ! I almost, almost falter, 

For my elder love is crying. 

Broken-hearted, pale and dying. 

Smile, O Lelia, smile upon me. 

Else thy backward home have won me ! 



Part II. 

Some, say she is Venus' daughter, 
Some, 'tis Venus, self disguised, 
Crystal birth from crystal water. 
Greatly loved by Jove, and prized ; 
Yet hath spurned them all to bless me, 
Scorned the angels to caress me, 
Happy, happy, happy me ! 
Let me now my bondage sever, 
I will live on smiles forever, 
Loving Lelia, only thee — 
Only thee, whose waving hair 
Streams like gold thread on the air. 
Scattering round its living sparkles 
When the day of dreaming darkles. 
And the soft eve's footfall hovers 
O'er the hearts of simpering lovers ; 



POEMS. 123 

Lelia, Lelia, I am thine, 

Thou my spirit's worship shrine. 

Lo, I'm wed to dream and beauty, 
Can the charm be ever lost, — 
Can the barque to wreck be tost, 
Bearing us above the surges ? 
Shall the gale that onward urges, 
Turn to tempest and to storm — 
And the breath of kisses warm 
Bhght us with its summer weather ? 
Love is now my spirit's duty. 
Firmly bound are we together, 
Bound by chains that tightly hold us. 
Bound by arms that closely fold us, 
Each the other's bosom pressing, 
Each the other's lips caressing. 
Like two furnaces of fire ; 
Coal enough to burn below them. 
Bellows' breath enough to blow them. 
Flaming purer, shooting higher ; 
Every tender fibre racking. 
Every cord of passion cracking, 
From the spirit's inward growth ; 
Spirit, warming, guiding both. 

Who would thought it with the setting 
Of the sun at yester eve. 



J24 P0EM3. 

Such a strange, new love begetting ? 

Who, when LeHa flitting o'er me, 

Had I bid them to beUeve — 

Would have thought me so false-hearted, 

Or so easy to be parted 

From the cheeks I used to kiss. 

Dashing down the cup of bliss 

1 had been with rapture tasting ? 

Now, to death and paleness wasting — 

Ha ! I'd laughed it as a vision 

Worthy but the heart's derision, 

Yet too true the sequel proved it. 

She but beck'd my heart and moved it. 

Yet, O, who, could well resist her ? 

Who resist the beauty, glowing 

Love from lips, and cheeks, and eyes ; 

Like a radiant seraph, throwing 

Fetters in the form of sighs ! 

Lo, the graces all assist her. 

She's the graces youngest sister, 

Archly smiling, fondly eyeing. 

Up the spirit's windows prying, 

Peeping in upon the soul. 

Spelling it to her control — 

Ere we think, the passions tender 

To the queen of hearts surrender. 

And the matchless Lelia binds us 



POEMS. 126 

Hand and foot in fairy grove, 
Smiles upon us from above, 
And when light of morning finds us, 
We are captives to her love. 

"Would that I could live forever, 
And the charm to me remain ; 
O, that cloudy morning, never 
Might return to mar again ; 
Let me to my bosom hold her, 
Let me to my spirit fold her, 
Lelia, Lelia, thou art mine. 
Body, soul, and all divine ! 
Beam those eyes as when thou won me, 
Lay that heaving bosom on me, 
Softly round me incense breathing. 
While among thy curls I'm wreathing 
Roses from the Paphian bowers ! 
Let us wing the flying hours. 
Wing them with a thousand kisses. 
All the sweet, delightful blisses 

Lovers know, 

Bid them go, 
While our spirits intertwining. 
Are on rosy beds reclining. 



126 POEMS. 



Part III. 



Flee away ye clouds of sorrow, 
Burst the fetter, burst the prison ! 
Fix the banquet for to-morrow. 
When my love and I have risen — 
From the purple vintage borrow 
Flagons full of fatted wine ; 
Be the feast with mirth attended, 
Smiles and wrinkles gaily blended, 
While we worship love divine. 
Love, that came at first from heaven, 
Love, by Jove to Venus given. 
Love, my Lelia's eyes betraying 
'Neath their silken lashes playing. 
Matchless, and half wanton peepers. 
Like two sly winged harvest reapers 
Clipping all the hearts around them ; 
Thousands wail the day she bound them, 
For my Lelia was too cruel. 
Only burned them up for fuel, 
Me, alack, 'mong all reserving. 
Me the chosen and the blest; 
Most in her sweet eyes deserving, 
Woe betide the luckless rest ! 



POEMS. 127 

Lo, the nuptial torch is blazing, 
Throngs the banquet board have prest ; 
Fondly on the bride are gazing 
Eyes of many a ravished guest. 
Crush the grapes, and ply the glasses. 
Merry, merry, merry be ! 
While to all the goblet passes, 
Leave my love alone to me. 
Lelia, thou art mine forever. 
Goddess o'er the captive heart ; 
I will yield thee up, O never. 
Never from thy presence part ! 
I have left the lassie lowly. 
Broke the love she gave me holy, 
I am thine, and mine thou art. 

O what new delights are breaking ! 
Wild the tide of joy I feel ; 
Spring, her purple mantle shaking. 
Treads upon the winter's heel ; 
Lelia, like a real blossom. 
Brighter smiles to summer skies. 
While her fresh and spotless bosom. 
Softer than the blushing cluster, 
Rhenish grapes of skyey lustre. 
Seems to throb and fondly rise — 
Strangers we to wo and anguish. 



128 POEMS. 

On the mossy knoll we languish, 
Speaking love in tender looks ; 
Taking lessons from the brooks, 
Which to find their ocean mother 
Leap with gladness to each other. 
And with waves and pebbles blended. 
Journey 'til their course is ended. 

Love, indeed ! what heart can banish, 
Who can wrest its chains away ? 
It hath tongaes to speak and vanish 
Like the bubble crested spray ; 
Hide as well the sunlight o'er us, 
Hide as well the air before us. 
Love has grown to be our spirit, 
Stronger than we first inherit — 
Being, from the gods descended. 
Unto human souls appended. 
Human souls musr ever bear it 
While they wander here below ; 
Not alone, but mix and share it. 
And in sweet communion grow ; 
Yet like me let few forsake her, 
Who was lowly born to love. 
But whose gentle heart bespake her 
Worthy of the gods above ; 
Cling unto the early cherished. 
Ere it withers, and is perished. 



POEMS. 229 



Part IV. 



Beauteous rose upon the mountain 
Has to meet the sunbeam sprung, 
As beside the marble fountain, 
Garden groves, and shades among ; 

Sweet lipt flowers 

In rude bowers, 
'Mong the crags, and in the valleys, 
Where the bee and hum-bird rallies, 
As in court of king palace, 
Persian or Italian lands ; 
Aye, with little bowls of chalice. 
Fairest violets upspringing, 
Are the dews of morning bringing 
From the glens in spotless hands — 
Oft, the faint and weary stranger 
Pausing on the lone hill side. 
Modest little rose hath spied. 
Plucked it for his bosom's keeping. 
Fond companion, waking, sleeping. 
Free from blemish and from stain— 
Lo ! our Savior in a manger 
Came to birth upon the plain ; 
Scorn ye not then bud nor flower, 
11 



J30 POEMS. 

Though it spring in forest bower ; 

Showers and morning light are given 

From the bounteous lap of heaven, 

Unto all things here below ; 

Zephyrs o'er the daisies blow, 

Freshly, as upon the faces 

Of the lilies in the grot; 

God has blest the humblest places, 

Scattered o'er the earth His graces 

Beautifying every spot — 

Crush not then the lowly blossom, 

Fold it to thy faithful bosom, 

Be thou like the One above, 

Love, and never change thy love. 

May my falseness be forgiven, 

Wayward heart is this of mine ; 

Yet let not the chains be riven 

Binding me to Lelia's shrine! 

For the die is past returing, 

Though a stricken heart is burning. 

Though a blighted soul is yearning, 

I am pierced wath shafts divine. 

Other eyes than ours have tightened, 

Other lips than ours have sealed, 

Bonds, which time but smoothed and lightened ; 

Two young buds to Lelia yield 

The more sacred name of mother. 



POEMS. 131 

Cherub twins ! a sister, brother, 

Who could now unloose the chain ? 
Who the gush of hearts restrain, 

Who turn back our love again, 

Who the link that \ved us, sever ? 

Lo, we live and love forever I 

'Tis not love, with years, that waneth. 
But the want of love within ; 
All that's truly born, remaineth 
Still a deeper love to win ; 
As the grey hairs gather on us, 
And new sorrows press upon us, 
Evermore to love we turn ; 
Love that's like the charmed phial, 
Love that's like the measured dial, 
Never wasting, never tired ; 
And our drooping spirits burn 
With the deathless essence fired — 
O what is there goodly left us. 
When the spoiler has bereft us, 
If the shrine of love we spurn ? 
Nay, my Lelia, we will never 
Quench the spirit's warm endeavor. 
But live on and love forever. 



J32 POEMS. 



Part V. 



Day by day our life decreaseth, 

Forehead wrinkled, hair is grey, 

Yet the fire of love increaseth 

As the seasons fade away ; 

Jove has wisely thus arranged it 

As our ills around us press, 

Giving us a well upspringing. 

Ever to our presence bringing 

Waters of serener life ; 

Though a storm may have deranged it, 

Though fond eyes an hour enstranged it, 

Cankered it with pain and strife ; 

Love, with soothing comes to bless, 

Comes o*er every human sorrow, 

Comes afresh with every morrow, 

Folding us in softer arms ; 

New delights, though old, hang o'er us, 

Bowers and fragrance spring before us 

Clad in love's immortal charms ! 

Love, O love ! whoe'er hath painted 
Half thy spirit, half thy glow ? 
Who has given us below 



POEMS. 133 

Gleamlngs of thy soul untainted — 
Thou, who sprang from Ellas' water, 
Fair Eutherea's crimson daughter, 
Crimsoned with the blush of light — 
Who hath shown thy lips like blossom ? 
Who thy luscious parian bosom ? 
Who thine eyes like stars of eve'n ? 
Who thy cheeks like hues of heaven ? 
Who those hands and glorious ankles, 
Whence the darts of passion spring ? 
Dart that in our bosom rankles 
Half to anguish, half dehght ; 
Cured not 'till love's fairies bring 
Bands from their sweet lips to swathe it, 
Essence from their eyes to bathe it. 

When the purple sky is glowing 

Clad in sunlight soft and warm, 

O'er the vale and river throwing 

Golden summer's sweetest charm ; 
Gaze thou up the archway airy, 
See yon silver mist-winged fairy 

Tossing light upon the fountain. 

O'er the forest, on the mountain. 

Bathing all the rose crowned meadows 

First with gleaming, then with shadows, 
11* 



134 POEMS. 

Casting from her mystic horn 
Yellow fragrance on the corn ; 
Slighting not a bud or flower, 
Lowly glen and kingly bower 
Each, alike, her splendor sharing, 
Each, alike, her incense bearing, 
That is love. 
Born above, 
Love, creation ever feeding, 
Love, a deeper love still breeding ! 

Unto us the flame imparted 
Though in poor and lesser form, 
Deeper, in the purer hearted. 
Has o'er every ill and storm. 

Upward risen 

From its prison. 
Soaring nearer to the skies ; 
Mothers to their children give it. 
Youths and happy maidens live it 
In the tender clime of sighs ; 
In the language of the eyes. 
In the lips, when fondly pressing. 
One short moment hath a blessing 
Worth a dozen loveless years ! 
Thus the flame around us living 
Is to all its portion giving, 



POEMS. 135 

Springing, wiping many tears, 
Kindling, killing many fears ! 

Two sweet eyes of childhood beaming 
Gaze into their mother's face, 
Holy glances upward streaming 
Swiftly on each other chace ; 
In the depths of their keen blueness, 
Love unspotted, yet in newness, 

Fairest seems of mortal birth ; 

Purest here upon the earth. 
Purest, save the mother's glances, 
Each, of which, a ripple bright, 
O'er the bosom's treasure dances 
Like a wave of golden light ; 
Soul to soul is softly flying. 
While the child and mother eyeing 
Live in an exquisite pleasure, 
Love beyond the rule of measure, 
Love most beautiful and holy. 
Though it sprang from bosoms lowly. 



Part VL 

Not alone, in skies above us, 

'Mong the gods who watch and love us, 



136 POEMS. 

Not alone in hearts of mortals 
Is the beam of love displayed- — 

Larger sharing, 

Farther bearing, 
Unto us indeed is sent ; 
Yet, have others ope'd the portals, 
Other forms the veil have rent — 

Dimer shapes of the creation 

Have unlocked the revelation. 
And with their upshooting, borne 
Witness to the glorious Spirit, 
Which so many shapes inherit. 
Though witii garments soiled and torn ; 
FilHng all the world around us 
With strange images, that bound us, 
Passing by the vale, or stream, , 

With the magic of their gleam. 

See thou yonder vine that springeth 

Close beside the mossy rock. 

How it ever fondly clingeth. 

Firmest in the tempest shock ; 

Arms of little leaves out-throwing. 

In the smiling sun-glance growing 
Stronger, fairer every day, 
While the rock, with tempests grey 

Folds it closer to its bosom, 



POEMS. 1 37 

Trickles tears upon each blossom, 
Like a mother, young and tender — 
Mark the brook wave, as it kisses 
Grass upon the tufted brink, 
While the leaflets stoop to drink. 
One by one, the ripples splashing. 
On, like amorous gallants dashing 
Smack the overhanging misses ; 
Think not much it doth offend her, 
Whether grass, or bud, or rose, 
For they all with glee return it. 
Whence the art, or how they learn it, 
Jove, their maker, only knows. 

So, too, ocean waves and surges, 
Not alone for ships create ; 
Each the other onward urges. 
Mingling, kissing, intertwining, 
Blend in hidden caves reclining. 
Or along the sand of beaches 
Fling their mist, and tide, and spray ; 
Full of mirth and wanton play. 
Like wild water maids, with dresses 
Shook up proudly to be seen. 
With clear eyes, and wavy tresses 
Sparkling in the summer's sheen ; 
In their recklessness, half courting, 
Seemingly sincere, then sporting, 



138 POEMS. 

Yet enough of love betraying 
In their fickle freaks displaying. 

So, too, birds their beaks together 

Lock in toying wanton mood, 

Sporting in the leafy wood 

Parted not by time or weather, 

True to love's implicit law — 

So, too, when the winds are lifting 

Up the branches of the trees. 

How the young leaves loving hearted, 

By a gentle tremor started. 

Fondly kiss the passing breeze — 

Thus from every path we draw 

Evidence that love is boundless, 

Though it has a thousand forms — 

Thus the heart of man is bidden 

By sweet sounds and tongues half hidden, 

To go forth in quest of love ; 

Earth beneath him, sky above, 

Are o'erfilled with tender voices, 

Each alike in love rejoices, 

Spite of sorrows, and of storms ! 



POEMS* 139 



Part VIL 



O, my Lelia, such thou kindled 
In this quivering heart of mine ; 
Royal flame by time undwindled, 
Flame, supremest, and divine ! 
Though it shoots less fiercely in me 
Than when first she stooped to win me, 
And around my spirit twine 

Softer feelings, 

Holy stealings, 
From her fount in mystic clime ; 
It is deeper, smoother, purer, 
Fuller far of faith, and surer, 
More exalted and sublime — 
For as passion downward sinketh, 
More and more the spirit drinketh, 
More and more the reason thinketh, 
And the shrine of love embraces 
For its own in-dwelling graces. 
Love like ours is not a passion, 
Passion dies with use away ; 
Ours, the vestal fire from heaven. 
Quenchless as 'twas spotless given j 
Ours the light that never iadeth, 



140 roEMS. 

Though the cloud or midnight shadeth, 
Ever a perpetual day — 
Time and change, and creed and fashion, 
These, she all alike defies ; 
Breaketh prison bars asunder, 
'Scapeth from the dungeon's under, 
Laughs amid the cannon's rattle. 
Smiles above the wreck of battle, 
Gazing to her native skies ! 
She hath nerved the soldier's feeling, 
Blest the martyr lowly kneeling. 
Cheered the slave with fetters reeling, 

Broke his chains, 

Cured his pains. 
Such her strength and power of healing, 
Such her lofty sweet revealing. 

Think not strange then Leha won me 
With those eyes of hers upon me, 
Or that I forsook the lowly 
Who had loved with fire as holy. 
The first heart was not for me ! 
In the absence of a stronger, 
I, by nursing, germing longer. 
Might the flame in faintness see ; 
But when came the stronger to me, 
It, in spite of fate, must woo me ; 



POEMS. 241 

For the heart, like loam well furrowed 
Where the power of growth lies burrowed, 
Will, when plump good grain is scattered, 
Though by hail of tempest's battered, 
Catch the seed, and fondly nurse it, 
Though the blasts of mildew curse it, 
And the winter snows disperse it. 

Love is sacred, and its keeping 
Should be like the altar's fire. 
Guarded waking, guarded sleeping, 
Parted from all low desire ; 
As within it, spirits mingle. 
Curst when left to wander single ; 
For with all things heaven created 
It hath hunger to be sated, 
And if fed with fruits unspotted, 
Hearts to virtue's fane allotted, 
Tt shall live and rise forever, 
Live, to be the very soul — 
Live, to spurn the base control 
Outward thino^s have flung around it, 
Though no chain hath ever bound it ; 
Chains are flax cords it may sever. 
As the candle flame hath darted 
And the thread of spinner parted. 
12 



142 



POEMS. 



Deep within me, like a river, 
Broady and clear, and ever strong f 
Glorious gift of glorious giver 
Let its holy gleam ings throng. 
Bearing me to bliss along ! 
Reckless, I, of every danger, 
Unto every care a stranger. 
While the lioht of love is mine — 
Fade away ye starry gleamings, 
Veil your face ye sunny beamings,r 
Only leave me love divine- — 
Love, all else of life excelling, 
Love, the spirit's clouds dispelling, 
Love, within me ever dwelling 
While I bend at Lelia's shrine — - 
Shrine at first of flame and beauty, 
Shrine at last of sacred duty. 
Shrine where first my heart was riven^ 
Where my vow was fondly given, 
Where I found my worship Heaven. 



Part VIIL 

Lelia ! Lelia ! life is closing, 
Youth and middle age are past ; 



POEMS. 143 

Far away, from toil reposing, 
Let the world be backward cast — 
We have seen and we have tasted, 
We have hoaided up and wasted. 
Freshness cannot always last ; 
Nay, the face is full of wrinkles. 
Time the white hair thickly sprinkles. 
Limbs are weak that firmly bore us, 
Second childhood creepeth o'er us, 

Like a spell, 

Or a swell 
From the darkling Lethean river ; 
Lo, with winter chill we shiver, 
Passing, passing swift away, 
Creatures of a transient day. 
Six feet long of earth, the dwelling 
Where our triumph song is knelling ! 

Yet though life is beaming dimly, 
And the spoiler waiteth grimly, 
Love its fire has doubly quickened ; 

Love is now the hope of living, 
Love is only solace giving, 
Touch and taste, and smell have sickened, 
But the heart hath kept its feeling, 
And is now to us revealing 
That which youth in part concealed ; 



144 



POEMS. 

Deeply down the soul, it showeth, 

How in calmness ever groweth 

The resistless spirit flame — 

How the dream we early cherished 

Of mere outward beauty, perished, 

And above its desert field 

Shoots of deathless blossom came ; 

This, though w^e are deathward treading, 

Is within us lifeward spreading. 

And is our sublimer wedding ! 

But one thing, ye gods, O tell me t 
When we sunder life's poor chain, 
In the upper regions shall we 
Meet, and live, and love again ? 
Will my Lelia then adore me. 
Love me wilh as true a heart — 
With fond eyes as now gaze o'er me, 
Will her lips as now caress me. 
Will she only live to bless me 
Guileless as to-day of art ? 
Tell me, tell me, 1 beseech thee, 
E'en though fate's own secret teach me, 
Tell me only this, and I, 
Happy wait my time to die ! 
Ah, I hear a sweet low whisper, 
Voice of some young angel lisper, 



POEMS. X45 

Voice from yonder starry dwelling 
On the wing of zephyrs swelling, 
Saying, '* ye shall live, and love, 
In the golden world above I" 

Ha ! enough, O Lelia, hasten, 
Let us end our days carressing, 
Lips as in our youth time pressing ; 
Wave thy gold thread hair above me, 
Say but once more that you love me ; 
Be thine eyes upon me beaming 
Like two stars from heaven gleaming, 
Hold me with thine arms so tender. 
Hold me, hold me, hold me fast ! 
Until I to death surrender. 
Dearest Lelia, ope's the portal, 
Loves immortal ! love's immortal ! 
O'er the crumbling dust arisen, 
Up, my spirit fr-om its prison. 
Unto love forever given. 
Leaps into its native heaven ! 



.2* 



Tfrfll Offl ^ IB IB t. IE ll^D© 

FROM THE DREAM OF A FRIEND.* 



A strange, strange world is that of dream, 
Whose stars upon our spirits gleam 
In many a fevered sleeping hour ; 
A wondrous spell it hath of power 
To droop its pinions o'er the soul, 
And bid of joy, or sadness, roll 
Henceforth a deep and swelling river : 
Our hearts are of suspicious mould, 
And many a phantasy we fold 
Half seen in visions of the night. 
When ravens come at break of day, 
And croaking, scaie our dreams aw^y, 
With fears of ill that make us shiver! 
The shades of friends we loved of old, 
Half peering through their coffin mould. 
With eyes all lustreless and cold, 
Haunt many a weary after time; 
And bells we heard of midnight chime, 

* Richard Burdsall, N. Y. 



POEMS. 147 

From ruined tower, and cloister grey, 
Are echoing on from day to day, 
And o'er the fountains of our feeling, 
Like frost upon a river stealing. 

A strange, strange dream was that of mine ! 

Which even now, around the shrine 

Of memory, like a vestal fire. 

Has much to dampen, or inspire : 

I thought beside Niagara's foam. 

Where I was lingering far from home 

To drive this paleness from my brow ; 

That some wild spirit came to me. 

Some shadower of my destiny. 

And bid me to the altar's side. 

Where stood a beauteous form — my bride — 

Ah, yes, my bride ! I knew her well. 

That moment, like a Lethean spell, 

O'er all my olden life was cast. 

And only she, of all the past. 

Remained to fill that glorious hour ; 

And I must wed within the bower 

That girl of fond and dreamy face — 

What thrills across my bosom came. 

How pure within my heart the flame, 

As closer to the shrine I drew ; 

How fair her beaming visage grew 



148 POEMS. 

As smiles from lip and cheek would chace- 
My sister — lo ! 'twas she ; yet I, 
No sign of kin in her could trace, 
Except she wore the sister's brow, 
The smile, the blueness of her eye, 
Which fate had only given her now 
So I might know the love was pure. 
The lip was true, the heart was sure. 
Which claimed that eve the sacred vow\ 

No priest was nigh to cross our hands, 

No friends to bless the closing bands, 

For there we coldly stood alone ; 

Each gazing in the other's eye 

With something like intensity ! 

But ah, soon passed that chilling spell, 

I touched the shrine, a mossy stone, 

On which the night dew came to dwell, 

Beneath the lone star sparkling bright ! 

Then rose I to fulfil my plight. 

To give those ruby lips a kiss ; 

Away ! away, ye dreams of bliss, 

The form I loved eluded me ; 

And back with slow and measured tread 

It passed, and from its visage fled 

The sister's brow, and cheek, and smile. 

And left another's to beguile. 



POEMS. 149 

And woo, and tempt, and only flee, 

The more I vStrove to gain its side, 

Till in the distance far away . 

It turned to marble, cold and grey, 

A monument of blight and death, 

My changed, and lost, yet living bride ; 

For, lo ! her eyes were sparkling yet, 

Her brow, and cheek, and lip divine, 

Were fresh and fair as at the shrine ; 

And on the mist I saw her breath 

Like curling vapor upward rise. 

And blending with the clouds it met. 

Return in soft and tender sighs ; 

While heart, and soul, and form had turned 

To marble, like a life in-urned. 

Whose smile should win the passer by. 

And tempt, then mock the gazer's eye. 

Such was my dream, and there my bride 
Stands ever by the river side. 
Received in faith, in falseness lost; 
Still o'er the heart with trouble tost, 
To live in all of memory's hours : 
And like that dream how much of life, 
How much that woo's with beauty here, 
Retreats, and turns to marble drear ; 
And only in these souls of ours, 



150 POEMS. 

In days of bitterest wo and strife, 
Peers out with eye of power to bless, 
But only stirs our wretchedness ! 
Ah, we have many a mystic shrine, 
Whereon the leaves of blight are laid ; 
Where love, and beauty, come arrayed. 
To wreck, O, man, this heart of thine. 
Not all of dream — nor far away. 
But here in waking hour, to-day ! 
Some charm may press upon the soul, 
Some spirit bid thee to the goal. 
Where lip as thine own sister's fair 
Shall bid thee kneel, and homage swear. 
And kiss the shrine where hope is laid — 
Aye ! thou shalt woo some dreamy maid 
And rise to hear her tongue deride. 
To see her vanish from thy side. 
As faithless as my Marble Bride. 



r^E [^yQiM[i© ©m 



He has seen brighter days ! that brow, 
Has not been always stained as now. 



POEMS. 151 

That half curled lip, and glaring eye 
Which seems to gaze on vacancy, 
Proclaim a holier childhood's hour, 
Before the tempting demon's power 
Led forth the heart it loved so well, 
To taste the hissing fire of hell ! 
Go to yon cottage, far away, 
Where brooks in summer valleys play, 
Beneath that roof, a mother's joy, 
Behold him yet a smiling boy. 

The hope of love, the stay of age, 
A blotless line of nature's page — 
Behold him now in manhood's form. 

The wreck of lust, and passion's storm ! 

The mother sleeps with broken heart, 

The cottage roof in dust is laid. 

The fire upon the hearth decayed, 

While he, the blasted and the sear, 

Feels not a pang, nor drops a tear. 

O, God ! what poison on his soul 

Has played so fiercely Lethe's part ? 

What chalice bowl hath seared his lip ? 

What plague the human tongue could sip 

And have such silence o'er it roll? 

Tell, ye who haunt the lazaar place, 

Who lift the cup of mingled gall, 

And bid the midnight curtain fall 

O'er every dream to manhood dear ! 



152 Poems. 

He has seen brighter clays— ere cast 

Upon the wave, and to the blast ; 

For even now, within his eye, 

I mark the spirit's agony !- — 

I see the heaving billow swell. 

And scorpions ip his bosom dwell 

In hours like these, when dreams come back 

And crush his spirit to the rack. 

O, who shall say hov/ long he stood, 

How long he trembled o'er the flooG^, 

Before he plunged into the wave, 

And made himself a wretch, a slave ? 

What witching eyes seduced him first, 

What syren on his dreaming burst, 

And held the cup of foamy wine. 

Or bid him to the gambler's shrine ? 

O, trace him step by step, and see • 

How much it cost of misery ; 

How many pangs that soul have rent, 

Since from the cottage forth he went ; 

How many nights of sleepless wo. 

That like a vulture gnawing slow, 

Have risen but to days of pain, 

And only smote the living slain ! 

O, sum the ill, and sum the strife, 

The woes and errings of that life, 

Has not the ruined one been paid 

For evil done, and good delayed ? 



POEMS, 



153 



What more, O brother, would yoa add 
To spirit shrivelled, sear and mad ? 
What other grim'r death, O tell — 
What hotter fire, or darker hell ! 

I cannot pass such ruin by 
And feel no tear drop in my eye, 
I cannot say to him whose soul 
Was once as free and fresh as mine, 
Go ! end thy madness in the bowl, 
Turn not again to virtue's shrine : — 
O, no ! though stricken to the earth, 
He boasts the sam.e immortal birth, 
He claims a brotherhood — and I, 
Must yield him back humanity I 
O let me take his hand to bless, 
To soothe his grief and wretchedness, 
And lead him up again to life — 
Subdue his lust, and calm his strife, 
Press back those wrinkles on his face, 
And while the lines of kin I trace. 
Performing but a brother's part 
Restore to him his childhood's heart. 



13 



I\i QT 



Life is the earnest of a far off goal, 

The earth a. dwelHng for progressive life } 

The body a dark prison, where the soul 

Beats round like drift-wood on the rocks of strife ^ 

Hope is our evening star, and faith at morn 

The royal sun which cheers the heart forlorn. 

Here, pilgrims do we journey, grief and joy, 
Fear, doubt, and confidence at times our own :■ 
Monarchs in dream, and beggars when alloy 
Comes with the dawn to strip our gilded throne 5 
Thus walking forth, or hobbling ever, we, 
Fulfil the measure of our destiny. 

And who are greater? they whose bauble croWn 
Has made them tyrants for a little day— 
Or the victorious who tramp cities down. 
And scarce survive the horrors of their fray ? 
"What more are these than the poor cringing slave 
Wk) drags his fetters to the pleasant grave ? 



POEMS 155 

A score of years shall sift them back to dust, 

And strip the one as naked as the other ; 

The chain and helmet will together rust, 

And they lie close as brother would with brother ; 

Fresh flowers o'er cither's body — sleep they sound, 

But the souls altitude their fame shall bound ! 

The proudest king is an imperial fool. 
Who thinks his throne has made him more than man, 
That robe, and sceptre, and an hour of rule, 
Have lifted up and placed him in the van ; 
Moth shall eat up his robes, slaves trample o'er 
The crumbled stone which speaks of him no more ! 

Doubt if ye will — here is the evidence, 
The desert places where old empires stood ; 
Cities and states, and tribute lands immense — • 
Their splendor wrecked in the destroying flood 
Of years, that weave around the pyramid 
Grey moss^ 'neath which its builder's name is hid ! 

Ask the proud ruin standing desolate. 

Where sleep the heroes and the mouldered kings ? 

And echo, mocking with the voice of fate, 

' O where !' 'mid isles and broken columns, rings — 

Dig in the earth, and 'mong its loosened sands 

Feel for the slave and monarch with thy hands ! 



156 POEMS. 

The noblest sat securely on their thrones, 
Sent forth their legions earth's confines to pierce ; 
When lo ! like furies sweeping from their zones, 
The Timur's, Brennus*, and Alaric's fierce. 
Brought quivering to their lips, and paUid fear, 
Rome stooped to Gaul ! Bajazet to his bier 1 

Even in our time hath risen a peasant child, 
To spoil the play ground of a dozen kings, 
And teach obesiance to their power defiled ! 
A boy, whose name supremely o'er them rings — ^ 
Heard ye the damage to their play-things done. 
When through their nursery, strode Napoleon ? 

The banners of our western world are bright, 

The standards of the east are fading fast ; 

O'er despot gloom comes freedom's dawning light. 

Ere long the fetter and the throne are past — 

Like air or waves we struggle to be free, 

Each day but proves the world's equality. 

Thus strive the realms and races of the earth, 
Thus struggle on to rule, or to be free ; 
Thus wear their chains in turn, and boast their birth. 
Hug thrones, or galleys, as the case may be — 
And, * as it is,* the world moves on its way, 
Brings ages forth to wrap in dust away. 



POEMS. 157 

We see a charm in all things here create, 
From smallest mote, to the supremest star, 
As they shall tend to make us small or great, 
And only do they charm us just so far — 
We love the hidden, or part hidden most, 
Because, it tempts us at the greatest cost. 

There is some vision ever in our eyes, 

Some glimmering hope beyond the storm of tears ; 

Some fond, sweet dream of ours, that never dies. 

Though young affection feels the wreck of years ; 

Philosophers, apostles, poets, fools! 

All bend to fate, and are her supple tools. 

And yet there is no fate omnipotent f 
The strong soul, striving, overcometh ill. 
The weak bows down with vassallage content, 
And bides the hail, which hurtles not on will ; 
Will shapes our destiny — and will is fate. 
To make us lowly, or supremely great ! 

Who are they — robed in purple, or gilt cloth. 
Long titled lords, or undisputed kings ? 
And who these serfs, who truckle somewhat loth, 
And bow to splendor, like inferior things f 
Sift them together ; which is which — can'st say ? 
Nay ! with their robes, distinction's passed away. 
13* 



jgg POEMS. 

O, miserable abjectness ! poor slave, 
To kneel before an image of thine own ; 
For thy own rights of thine own equal crave, 
And to thy prayer for bread, receive a stone 1 
Sluggard, rise up ! become a man again. 
Or bear unpitied the unyielding chain. 

Is he grown less who seives his kind for hire, 
Does not the hire'r also toil for gain ? 
Interest is labor's law ! the spirit's fire 
Need not contaminate itself with stain. 
That its rude hands work for a lesser pay ; 
The soul's a soul, howe'er we toil to-day. 

Hunt up ye scorners, your past pedigrees, 
Back to what conquest do ye trace your sires — 
The Norman, — Gallic — or some other ? these 
Are your diploma's — mine, alack ! aspires 
To God himself, more ancient than all birth, 
Is there a prouder lineage in the earth ? 

Ahead, ye scorners, beams your life how far.'* 
Alas, your shadows dwindle into death ; 
Ye only dazzle as ye stride the car. 
Lost and forgotten when ye part from breath ; 
Fame hangs upon the tissue of your hems, 
And ye are great because of diadems ! 



POEMS. 159 

So we sometimes do freemen qualify, 

If they've an ass, two hundred dollars worth, 

Their citizenship's good in the law's eye ; 

Thus braying, to the ballot-box go forth 

Not freemen, but the gold which made them free. 

And ye are such, say all — and so, say we ! 

Appearances we may not always trust, 
The man who swaggers with such pomp to-day. 
To-morrow, prisoned for some breach of trust 
May lie in statue-quo ; and lips which pray 
Long prayers, with oaths blasphemous quiver, 
As storm and sunlight mantle on a river. 

How is our greatness born ? one half of slimed- 
Opinion's breath fans up some little wave. 
In plunges man, and soaring out sublime 
Lifts up his dapper wings, a gilded slave ! 
The very meanest though he soar so high, 
The serf of serfs in honest freedom's eye. 

There's but one standard, not what he is worth, 

As in the common parlance of the day, 

For wealth, and place, and advantageous birth 

Pass with the vulgar, and as merit sway — 

The man is only man howe'er so high. 

Who does to man as he would be done by. 



160 POEMS. 

What reck I all these palaces of stone, 

These pillared arches of unsated pride — 

The robber's sword, the tyrant's bauble throne, 

His strength of armies, and his empire wide ? 

The winds which blew those toy-things of an hour, 

Will wrest them back with a relentless power ! 

And who would be a lord, hemmed in by walls, 
With none but slaves, to ask, or do his will — 
Live curst, die curst amid his splendid halls, 
And of the future but his coffin fill? 
We may extort submission from the tongue, 
But all true homage from the heart hath sprung. 

Cowl'd monk and priest are uttering hollow prayer, 
The cloister dim gives echo to their feet ; 
The brave, free spirit, in the open air 
Sends up his worship to the mercy-seat. 
Bears forth no dagger underneath his robe. 
The heart repentant, at the shrine to probe ! 

Beware, who touch ye ! villains do profess, 
Like evil, preaching virtue unto good — 
Be strong, O soul 1 the vipers to repress ; 
Be keen of eye to search the poison brood, 
And shun the face which bears a canting smile, 
The devil's look weak children to beguile. 



POEMS. 161 

My years are few, so far in this fair world, 
Yet I have seen, where I expected flowers. 
Rank thorns spring up, and friendly lips grow curl'd 
Which bore me pleasant smiles in other hours — 
Not only in the sky, black clouds are rife. 
They mock the sunshine of our social life. 

Blast after blast preys on the feeling heart. 

As days of chill upon the river's breast 

Bring frost and ice — neglect and scorn, are part 

Of the strong armor suicide loves best ; 

The weak sink under such rude storms as these, 

The strong feel stronger in the wrathful breeze. 

And that is virtue, stoutly to resist. 

Not to be innocent with nought to tempt ; 

To meet the satan and his pleading list. 

Then cast him backward with serene comtempt ! 

Who so goes forth, is mighty — and no goal 

Of vulgar kind can move his earnest soul. 

Ye friends, however adverse fortune's winds may be, 
However keen her touch of winter snows. 
Preserve within, the spirit that is free — 
Rise o'er earth's hate as ever greatness rose- 
Shall butterflies, who bide the summer day, 
Tempt thee, or me, to loiter by the way f 



162 POEMS. 

Ahead, is a high mission to fulfil, 
The point to gain is our own happiness ; 
The means are ample, with a trusty will. 
We may go forth for blessing while we bless ; 
And humble much of human scorn and pride, 
By the unyielding progress of our stride. 

What matters it who bow in crowded street ? 
Broadway is full of asses, as wise men ; 
Things, vamped by tailors, every day, we meet, 
Whose smile, an insult to free soul had been ; 
The scum of nature in gay laces dressed. 
Poor folly's fools, beneath her fetters pressed ! 

Aye, bear thee on, and be a free one, thou — 
Strong, only as thou hast a consciousness. 
That stain rests neither on thy soul or brow ! 
To such an one, are infinitely less. 
The fever'd souls who earth's great phalanx throng, 
Whose fame or fortune is built up of wrong. 

Can wealth, or place, give peace to this wild heart, 

Which beats so strangely to the nod of fate ? 

Nay ! fiery fingers on the wall will start. 

And Mordecai's be sitting at the gate ; 

The very rack we build to torture others, 

Our peace consumes, and our enjoyment smothers. 



The height of my ambition, has been this,— 
To earn the smile of honest men, though rags 
May.be their livery^-there hes a bliss 
In being loved by them ! life never drags 
With him who earns so glorious a meed. 
Though he may strive continually with need* 

And ye may win their love, in many a lane, 
Put forth your hands, the lowly one to cheer^ 
And up their gratitude will spring, as rain 
Descends upon the harvests of the year ; 
The deeds of virtue a respondence meet — 
Who labors thus, shall have his joy complete ! 

There is a heaven for every human soul, 

A liberty for every craving spirit ; 

The first, is won, as we would win a goal, 

The second, is a power that we inherit— 

If heaven is worth thy reaching for, 'tis thine. 

And freedom springs to those who touch her shrine* 

Think ye that tyrants only fetter slaves f 

Men bow themselves and bear the servile yoke—* 

Why crouch the millions, who, like ocean waves, 

Might rise and strike, and all their chains be broke f 

The passive serfs who tremble at the steel, 

^o more for bondage than the iron heeL 



But, lack-a-day ! our own is a free land'^^ 
Free f bah ! how free? when tons of fetters rattle^ 
And whips ring in our marts, and from the stand, 
Forms like our own are bargained for as cattle ? 
Aye, close beside the capitol ! where springs 
Our royal eagle on his full fledged wings. 

But, why talk of our freedom— all that we, 

Or ages gone, have tasted at her shrine, 

Is but a mock—^a thing of bastardy ! 

The lofty spirit, the full light divine, 

Is only shadowed, we may win it yet, 

But not while tyrants in our strong-holds sit. 

A better day springs on the vision far, 

As through the clouds, that dim a pleasant night, 

Beams faintly forth the visage of a star, 

Which by-and-bye shall burst with lustre bright. 

And we lift up our eyes, and in its light, 

For what we suffer, our own selves requite ! 

Thus hope I on from day to coming day, 
And strive to turn all things to best account ; 
With patience note my sands dissolve away. 
Our seventy years are but a small amount — 
And yet, enough, if when by death we're prest 
We have four friends to bear us to our rest ! 



IKlllNlIEY DMlMliKiKl 



From canvass old, and dark grey stone, 

What eyes are peering on my soul ; 

The great, and glorious of the past, 

The children whom Apelles wrought, 

And Phidias, of immortal fame ; 

And he,* who by his marble, grown 

To almost blushing life and thought, 

Died grieving at his wondrous goal, 

The first, the greatest, and the last. 

How fair, before my longing eyes, 

Their hero forms in pomp arise, 

And through the dust, and mould of age, 

O'er many a story-telling page, 

Restore the dead and lost again. 

For whom we dreamed and prayed in vain^ 

To see the purple vein which glowed 
Beneath a brow by beauty blest, 
Where, to the heart a life-stream flowed 

* Pygmalion. 
14 



jgg POEMS. 

Like wine from clustering vintage pressed ; 

To gaze on cheek, and fringed lid, 

And lip that mocked the fairest cluster 

Of rose-hued grapes, of brightest lustre, 

Where scorn, and witching smiles were hid — 

To see those fingers, soft and white, 

With crimson tinged, as through them glanced 

The blood that from the heart up danced, 

Like silvery brooks, beneath the light 

Of gayest noon, or sweetest eve — 

To see a form divinely glowing 

With all that tempts our human heart, 

Before us from the canvass start. 

Perfected by the touch divine. 

Which bids a life in newness shine 

When all that life has passed away ; 

Such spells as these, around us weave 

The glories of a perished day. 

And claim the awe, and praise we yield, 

To those endowed such power to wield. 

And such art thou, apostle strong ! 
Around whose brush, creations throng, 
Which mock the real they reflect ; 
Strange eyes from off thy canvass shine, 
And gaze into these orbs of mine 
With a wild look of life and meaning, 



POEMS. 157 

As though they were, linked spirits, gleaning 
The inmost workings of my soul. 
Hast thou not with thy touch of art, 
Beneath that face enthroned a heart, 
Whose living purple ever gushes 
Into those cheeks, and lips, their blushes ? 
Aye, e'en a part of thought and soul 
Decoyed beyond their prison goal, 
And bound them with thy pencil there, 
Henceforth a wondrous life to share f 
Ah, wizard spell ! why should men die, 
Or fear to die, when thou canst shift 
Them to the canvass, all but breath ? 
And bid them laugh at time, and death ; 
Or e'en defiance's banner lift. 
And rise, though dumb, supremely great, 
To scorn the awful lash of fate. 

Stay not thy hand, O genius child ! 

Stoop not for gold, nor lure, nor charm ; 

Give not the labor of that arm 

Which steals the glory of the sky, 

And weaves it 'round such brows as mine, 

To aught that can decay, or die. 

Thou art a worshiper, thy shrine 

Is beauty's blush, her smile divine ; 

from it, never, never part ! 



2gg POEMS, 

But weave the incense of thy heart, 
And woo the goddess fair and young, 
And from thy canvass, whence have sprung 
Such glorious forms of Ufe, shall start 
Obedient to the master's will, 
Our very selves, we living still. 



T© ^ [PO©TP[^[E.* 



Ha ! I must pause and gaze on this sweet face, 

No less than the fair angel of my dreams. 

What eyes, what cheeks, what tempting lips, what 

curls ! 
E'en as I saw them in that passing hour, 
When beauty's angel stole upon my sleep 
And left a fairy presence. What liquid fire 
Falls from those cloudless orbs upon my soul ; 
How, like ripe berries from the charmed tree, 
Which woos the heart, and fetters it forever. 
Seem those two ruby lips, that like a veil 
Of rosy tint, hide their secreted pearl. 

* Flora, by J. K. Fisher. 



POEMS. 169 

Those hills of crimson, mellow as the eve 
Which folds its face beneath the sun-set's blushes. 
So much for cheeks — cheeks, I have idolized — 
Aye, but not such as these, these passing fair ! 
Hast seen a knoll on a fresh summer morn, 
Say June, all shaded over with gay flowers, 
Daises, and violets, and scented grass. 
Kissing the first red shadow of the sun. 
As it came streaking from the golden east ? 
Then thou hast seen those cheeks ! 

I fain would taste them. 
Nay, not now ! my lips are soiled ; when purified 
By a long penance day of abstinence. 
Then, not till then, will I presume to kiss. 
And these gay ringlets, floating on the air 
Just like so many blossoms, or young vines, 
Shading a beauteous castle — fain would I, 
Among them thrust my hand, and pluck a fetter 
For the foot of time ! O ye, delusive charms, 
Are ye but mocking the enraptured heart 
With your strange loveliness ? Is there no life 
Behind that parian brow ? quivers no heart 
Within that bosom deep, like vestal fire 
Upon its altar ? Hush ! the lips would speak, 
O, that they might, so I could drink their music — 
Nay, 'tis dumb ! 'Tis but a picture — Artist, 
14* 



170 POEMS. 

Take it hence, hide it beneath a veil ; 

Thou should'st not tempt me with unreal things, 

Or hang thy angel shadows in my path, 

To mutely mock with features passionless ! 

I dieam of beauty, but the vision fades, 

For they were spirits of a fairy land, 

Of whom I dreamed — and only in the hours 

Of night and darkness, flashed upon my sleep. 

Not so with thine, which bears so much of earth. 

As on the heart to spring and grow an idol. 

More worshiped, still more dumb — forever 

Cheating with its hollow charms. 



'©©Kl/aL© ©Li^l^llC 



Wail for the dead ! life's ever wayward spark, 
From one strange breast has latel}'- passed away ; 
Wail for the dead, for lo ! M'Donald Clarke, 
Child of high song, lies in the charnel dark. 
Wrapt in white robes to moulder into clay. 

It seems to us but yesterday, we heard 
His mellow voice, as on the battery-rail 



POEMS. 171 

He leaned, and wove, with many a mystic word, 
Strange thoughts, which, in our bosoms, stirred 
Emotions stranger than his artless tale. 

For we had heard men call him, Foet mad ! 
And laugh at that poor stricken soul forlorn, 
Which, stooping down at nature's shrine, was glad 
To twine one flower, and give it, humbly clad. 
Back to the world in payment for its scorn. 

That soul has fled, no more on earth to sing 

The scattered numbers of undying song ; 

But high above, where angels spread the wing, 

It soars, to touch the lyre of golden string, 

And chaunt God's glory with the deathless throng. 

No more the roar of ocean, nor its wave, 

Nor tide majestic, nor wild lawless surge, 

Nor glittering spray, nor Naiad's coral cave, 

Nor brooks, nor streams, that nature's bosom lave, 

Shall wake for him the triumph song or dirge. 

No more we hear the muimuring of that fount. 
Which lisped of stars and hidden pearly springs ; 
Which fresh from out the high Olympian mount. 
Loved most of all life's pleasures, to recount 
Such loftier deeds, as high-born poet sings. 



172 POEMS. 

Poor child of song ! his path through life was dim, 
And dark at times the chamber of his brain ; 
Stern wo filled up his goblet to the biim, 
While airy phantoms hovering round him grim, 
Crowned every joy with darkling throes of pain. 

The laugh, the sneer, the idle jest he felt 
Like cankered arrows piercing to his heart ; 
And wilder grew his phrenzy, as he knelt 
Beneath the blows by callous mortals dealt, 
And writhed, and groaned, and died beneath the 
smart. 

He is no more! we bid his dust farewell. 
And turn to muse on what he uttered here ; 
Though madly spoken, madness has a spell, 
A power to make the startled bosom swell ; 
Such power, M'Donald, followed thy career. 

Wail, wail for him ! though an erratic light, 
The world may wait foi such another long; 
Whene'er he gleamed, his fancy's sky was bright. 
Whene'er he sung, truth triumphed in his flight. 
And loved to crown his wild and wayward song. 

Wail, wail for him ! M'Donald is no more ! 
The battery-rail must wait for him in vain ; 



POEMS. 173 

He, death's dark stream, at last, has ferried o'er. 
To string his harp on the Elysian shore. 
And wake to hfe a more exalted strain. 

Wail, wail for him ! the bard is in his grave, 
To muse on things mysteriously dark ; 
Such is the fate of noble and of brave — 
O may wild flowers above his ashes wave, 
And mark the couch of poor M'Donald Clarke. 



Y [Ml©T[Kl[li§ 



Thrice hallowed name ! upon the scroll of feeling 
In golden letters written and impressed. 
With every hour thy form before me stealing 
Lights up my soul, and soothes this troubled breast ; 
In the gay world or in the closet kneeling. 
Thy presence is to me a calm revealing 
Of that pure love, which smothers all the rest ; 
Of earthly love, the purest, and the best. 

I think of the young days when bending o*er me. 
Thou watched the cradle where I helpless lay, 



j'j'^ POEMS. 

And for my very weakness did adore me ; 
(O were I now as in that childhood's day,) 
And as I grew, marked out the way before me, 
Or bade me rest when toilsome labor wore me ; 
I think of those, those loved times, passed away, 
Whose memory will, with thine, forever stay. 

Is there a love all other loves excelling ? 
I yield it upas homage at thy shrine; 
Because, I know, if God has deigned a dwelling 
In this poor world, 'tis in that heart of thine ; 
Whose only impulse is true love, impelling 
To good deeds, and fancy has been telling, 
If ever spirits in clay temples shine. 
The life that warms my Mother is divine. 

Dear, Mother ! now, while sterner cares are teeming, 
And every day some added burthen brings ; 
With brighter lustre, every moment gleaming, 
I feel thy presence like a spirit's wings — 
And oft, in wildness of my fancy dreaming, 
I see thine eyes above me fondly beaming, 
And I am happy ; I forget the stings 
That wound my heart in these imaginings. 

Dear, Mother ! where so'er I'm straying. 
Though near or distant, I at times may be, 



POEMS. j-^g 

Alike, thy presence or thy memory swaying, 
Through storm and calm shall always compass me ; 
And when with age, the haunts of youth surveying, 
I chide the time that chides my own delaying, 
Each scene, each wreck, each relic on life's sea, 
Will lead my soul to fondly think of thee. 



YElh 



There is a face we all have seen, 
And loved, because it gently smiled ; 
A pair of heavenly beaming eyes. 
Whose lustre, like the orient dyes 
Of sweetest summer morning came, 
And on our hearts by stain defiled. 
The very light of love became ; 
Till we were ravished and beguiled 
To fairer lands in dreaming hours. 
And made so good and pure of heart, 
That from our presence, only start, 
Fond hopes and ever blooming flowers. 

Ah ! it was Myra whom I saw, 
An angel in a mortal's dress, 



176 POEMS. 

A woman full of loveliness ; 

A sweet young girl, within whose gaze, 

As through the morning's silvery haze, 

A glorious woild is partly hid ; 

Yet when she ope'd that fringed lid, 

No evening star hath brighter shone. 

No dream a softer radiance thrown. 

Around the thrilled and trembling soul, 

A flood of halo seems to roll. 

And melting from those azure eyes, 

Restores it back to paradise. 

O, Myra, has the gentlest heart, 
A soul to feel for every sigh ; 
The lowly form that passeth by 
The cottage where her father dwells. 
Of Myra's love and goodness tells — 
Her hands the pilgrim's brow have prest, 
The weary sufferer is her guest 
Who faints upon the dusty way ! 
With him she stoops to watch and pray. 
To bathe his lips with holiest balm. 
His wounded spirit soothe and calm, 
And point him to the land of rest. 

Say not, the heart is soiled and lost, 
Ye have not seen my Myra's face, 



POEMS. 277 

Ye have not felt the kindling grace 
Which gives the wastes of life abloom — 
O think not faith and hope are sear, 
Until ye gaze into those clear 
And witching eyes, that gleam and melt, 
And feel the ecstacy, I've felt, 
Which blotted every shape of gloom 
And won me back to virtue's side. 
Till Myra grew my spirit-bride ! 



l^Y-^MT 



He is a Poet! from whose lips 

The light and fire of life have sprung, 

Forever fresh, forever young, 

To melt around the charmed heart. 

And never from our presence part. 

He is a Poet ! from whose tongue 
The words of love and truth arise, 
As lightning from the clouded skies 
Leaj^s, to descend and burst the chain, 
No tyrant dares restore again ! 
15 



jyg POEMS. 

He is a Poet ! from whose heart 
Forever gush the summer flowers, 
Which twine around these souls of ours, 
And while half ravished, we admire. 
Become our spirits holier fire. 

He is our Poet ! yet the world 
May touch the fountain's golden rim, 
May drink his glorious battle hymn, 
And stronger rise from day to day 
To cast the ills of life away. 



IF [^ © [Ml [Kl a Ki /a 



We are parting, my friend ! the hour draweth nigh, 

When our sad lips must breathe the farewell — 
When unbidden tear-drops will start to the eye, 

And sighs from the full bosom swell ! 
Yet we part not as those, who, when long years are 
fled. 

Must the dull weight of absence sustain. 
For hope sweetly whispers, ere long time hath sped. 

We shall mingle in friendship again ! 



POEMS. 179 

I go ! but where hoarsely the black surge's roar 

On my ear, like a thunder-burst breaks — 
Where wild rushing waters their deep anthem pour, 

And echo eternally wakes ! 
There's a voice with the sound of the storm-spirit's 
peal, 

That in deep undei-tone will combine, 
And soft, on the ear of my spirit will steal — 

That voice, O my friend, will be thine ! 

I shall see thee ! when weary, I sink to my rest, 

On the ocean's wild far-away shore. 
There's an unquiet spirit, which dwells in my breast, 

That in dreams will thine image restore ! 
Thou wilt come, thy pale brow illumed by the fire. 

Which genius has lit in thy soul. 
And the wild notes of music will gush from thy lyre, 

Which so oft to my bosom have stole ! 

Thou wilt be by my side, when in moments of fear. 

Death's dark waving pinions are seen — 
I shall hear thee, and know thee, and feel thou art 
near, 

Though 'twixt us, wide seas intervene ! 
For the link which can spirit to spirit unite. 

Not absence, nor distance dissolves — 
As the planet breaks not, in its furthermost flight. 

From the orb around which it revolves ! 



X80 POEMS. 

I go ! yet, oh say, ere T bid thee farewell. 

That thou'lt think of me, cherish me yet ! — 
I deem not that aught can thy friendship dispel — 

Yet tell me — *' I will not foroet !" 
And when, at last, back, with glad footsteps I come, 

My long, weary journeyings o'er, 
O, wilt thou be here then to welcome me home, 

To my loved and my cherished once more ! 



T© KIQKliaa 

We are parting, indeed — but we part not in tears. 

Like the many who hope never more. 
On the storm of our grief a bright rainbow appears, 

And with beauty illumines it o'er — 
That rainbow is hope, and 1 trust in its smile, 

For it whispers in vision to me, 
We shall meet, as we met, in a brief little while, 

Where my spirit may worship with thee ! 

We are parting — yet think not that distance can tend 

To lessen the love that I feel. 
On my soul is engraven thy spirit, dear friend, 

With a pen that is stronger than steel— 



POEMS. jgj 

Though mountains may bar, and wide seas intervene, 

Over all other pleasure or pain. 
Firm ! firm in my bosom that love will be green, 

Till we mingle our spirits again. 

I shall feel it when sorrow steals over my soul, 

Like an angel with shadowy wing. 
And in dream when sweet visions around me uproll, 

Like a paradise flow^er thou wilt spring — 
Thy soft beaming eyes like a spell wdll entrance, 

Though thy face may be far, far away, 
And my spirit will live in the light of that glance, 

Which has hallowed its rapture to-day ! 

Thou wilt be by my side, when I bow at the fane 

Where our souls were enkindled with fire, 
I shall know thee, and list to the low soothing strain, 

As it s[)iings from thy magical lyre ; 
And adown in my heart will the memories burn 

Of those hours which have forged the sweet chain. 
To whose bondage, with joy all unspoken 1 turn, 

While a sand in life's glass shall remain. 

Yes, my friend, though we part, we shall meet as 
we met. 
By the fane, and the hearth, and the board ', 



15^ 



Ig2 POEMS. 

And, oh ! dream not in fear, that my heart will forget. 

The idol so long it adored — 
* As the planets revolve, round their orbs in the sky,' 

As the worshiper kneels at his shrine, 
My heart to thy law of attraction will fly. 

And my soul shall be blended with thine ! 



ILIL^o 



She was my love, the spirit of my dream ! 
The fond sweet soul that ever solaced me ; 
Around my pillow like a sunset gleam, 
Kissing the billows of the stormy sea. 
Came her angelic smile, and I was blest 
To feel its radiance on my forehead rest. 

Others have loved for guile — she scorns the art 
Which tinges deadness with a hue of life. 
Whose fruit is ashes to the trusting heart. 
Which pains and sorrows in the path of strife ; 
Through unmistaken deeds which have no goal, 
I saw and felt the sincereness of her soul ! 



POEMS. 1Q3 

O, was it more of heaven, or less of earth 
Which moved her spirit, only God, may know ; 
Ella had pity's tear, and joy's calm mirth, 
And all that thrills or beautifies below ; 
Her duties were all pleasures, and each day 
Polished the charm of that which passed away. 

Ella, yet lives ! in spirit we are wed, 
And pass together life's unruffled stream : 
Yet she is far — the ocean makes its bed 
Between my footsteps and her place of dream, 
Though every eve, as draws its foot- fall nigh, 
Blends all our tears and mingles every sigh ! 

Beauty was Ella's lot, the grace which lies 
Full in the soul, and every day serene ; 
In the deep blueness of her tranquil eyes 
Fair as the sovran star at twilight seen, 
Lives the hearts passionate tenderness. 
Bidding all gazers its soft power confess ! 

Such is the bride my fitful heart hath chosen, 

Such the fair creature of my spirit's love ; 

My mortal goddess, till the soul is frozen, 

And hope has quenched her beaming star above — 

The world, with her, a blooming paradise. 

Without, a desert 'neath the stormful skies ! 



[B)1^T[1=11 



To die ! to be no more ! to pass away 
From this green, quiet world of flowers, 
And glorious sunlight ; from the spray 
Of crystal fountains, to decay 
Amid the spring of the eternal hours, 
x\ll unremembered, save as silent clay, 
Which human feet, or iron hoofs may spurn ; 
This is to die — a lesson all must learn ! 

To feel the heart cords breaking, one by one ! 
While springing tears congeal upon the cheek ; 
To know thy breath its little race has run, 
And thou can'st not the parting farewell speak. 
Save through set teeth ! To mutter, and when done. 
Like Byron, find thy whisper was too weak ; 
Then shrink in speechless agony ! a sun ! 
Flung blotted from its lofty sphere of light. 
To sink forever in unending night. 

To see the morning sun, that brightly rose, 
Resplendent with its flashing, gather dim 



POEM s. 185 

Upon the fading eye — to see unclose, 

Those curtains for the last time, to the brim 

Of the swoln heait the poisoned arrow goes. 

And taps the fount of anguish — while the grim, 

Pale, teriible king, upon the throes 

Of our own awful fainting, like the wave 

That whelms a swimmer, sweeps us to the grave ! 

To shriek for light ! to struggle in the dark. 
And feel thy limbs in that mysterious river — 
To gasp, and fling th}^ arms, and find no barque 
But a cohi ice, that makes thee twitch and shiver — 
To know thy hour is come, at last, ha, hark ! 
The eyes turn glassy, and the pale lips quiver ; 
Ho ! it is quenched, life's perishable spark ! 
The rattle springs, it bears away the breath, 
Dust, thou art dust again, and this is death ! 



How shall I know thee in the better-land. 
When thou and I, from earth have passed away? 
Where wilt thou be, that in thy shining hand 
Mine own may rest, as it hath done to-day ? 



185 r E M s , 

Not in farewell, though — in that upper clime, 
Could partings enter, 'twere no home for me ! 
To meet — to meet — through all unending time 
No moie to sever — must Elysium be ! 

How shall I find thee ? at what glorious shrine 
Will thy rapt spirit sweep the seraph's lyre ? 
'Mid the rich voices that are all divine, 
How can I tell if thine have joined the choir? 

Idle my question — on the mother's heart. 
Are not the tones of her first-born imprest? 
Though from her arms for long, long years he part, 
Can the dear voice be banished from her breast ? 

Oh, she would know the ne'er forgotten still. 
Gone though each trace of the old look he wore — 
In her deep heart there is a pulse would thrill 
When the dear voice should meet her ear no more ! 

Will n(it thy spirit, then, be known to me. 
Amid ten-thousand thousand seraphs bright. 
Though not one feature, that I now can see. 
Remain, to guide my yearning spirit's sight? 

Aye ! by the sudden and mysterious thrill 
Which quivers thro' me, as thy melting strain 



POEMS. 137 

Falls in sweet gusbings on my spirit, still — 
Still shall I know thee in that land again i 



T© MQIffl^ 



Shall we meet ? do ye doubt, in the land of the blest, 
That our spirits will greet as of yore — 

That away where the weary have gone to their rest, 
The loved shall be parted no more ? 

Shall me meet ? oh, I trust by the hopes of the soul, 

That breathe of a union divine ; 
Our hearts will be joined at that beautiful goal. 

And thy lips be pressed fondly to mine ! 

Shall we meet ? O, would heaven be heaven to thee, 
If the friends whom we cherished below, 

In that far-land of promise we never might see, 
And the smiles of the loved never know ? 

O, no ! for my soul has a heaven e'en here, 

In this pilgrimage journey of pain. 
If around me, the fond and the faithful are near, 

Never more to be parted again. 



IQQ POEMS. 

O yes, we shall meet ! for the dead who are gone, 

Even now in our dreaming return ; 
And beckon us up where their spirits have gone, 

Where the love-fires eternally burn. 

They come with the absent who part for a day, 

And sofllv thev tread o'er the soul, 
Like angels who walk in a rose-blossomed way, 

Or the summer-brook's musical roll. 

Doubt not ! we shall meet in the heaven at last, 

As the parted in spirit meet here, 
And the smile of the Father around us be cast. 

To dry up the last weeper's tear. 



TILL 



Estelle, O, gloiious Estelle ! 

Thou bind'st me with that beauteous smile 5 

I strive to fly from thee away. 

Those lips forbid, and bid me stay, 

I cannot speak the simple nay, 

O, let me kneel to thee av/hile. 



POEMS. 189 

Why did' St thou gaze at first on me ? 
The heart cannot resist such smile ; 
I've strove to blunt the piercing dart, 
Each blow but deeper in my heart 
Has driven the shaft, I cannot part, 
O let me kneel to thee awhile ! 

Fair girl, why droop those liquid eyes — 
Why add their lustre to that smile — 
Why let that Parian bosom swell — 
Why blush those cheeks like lilly-bell — 
Why tempt me thus, Estelle, Estelle ! 
Nor let me kneel to thee awhile ? 

A purple lip, a stainless brow, 
A heavenly form, an angel smile ; 
A tenderness, to melt and twine 
Around this fond young soul of mine, 
Have made Estelle to me divine. 
May I not kneel to her awhile ? 

Estelle, O, glorious Estelle, 
So long as thou shalt live, and smile, 
And turn on me those beaming eyes 
Which mock the light of summer skies, 
I will not from the shrine arise, 
But kneel, my love, to thee awhile. 
16 



©MQ @[F [i[Ei?\yTY 



I am come, I am come ! from the purple browed sky, 

The spirit of beauty to thee ; 
I ride on the wings of the rose-scented air, 
I sit on the hps of the violet fair, 
And weave me a wreath of the sun's golden hair, 
As his tresses go gleamingly by, 

And glimmer the foam of the sea. 

I am come, I am come ! with the glance of the dawn, 

In garments of glory and light ; 
The cheek of the maid, with my presence is blest, 
On the brow of the mother my blushes are prest, 
As she folds the sweet innocent babe to her breast ; 
I sit in the cottage, and mantle the lawn, 

With all that is golden or bright. 

I am come, I am come! on the flash of the plume, 

Where warriors are tossing their steel, 
'Mong the leaves of the forest, in summer I roam, 
And make on the sheen of the harvests my home, 
Of away on the wave, and the cataract's foam, 



POEMS. 29j 

In the gleam of the stars, and the smell of perfume, 
When spice-winds of autumn ye feel ! 

I am come, I am come ! to the soul and the eye, 

The heart that is gentle and true ; 
I smile where the steps of humanity press. 
Where the hand of the angel Is lifted to bless. 
Or the strong to the weak have bestowed a caress, 
And passed not the suffering by ; 
O, spirit of love, unto you ! 

I am come, I am come ! and T pass to decay. 
From the leaf, and the rose, and the cheek ; 

But I live in the heart that is ever sincere. 

The gush of the soul, and the gleam of the tear, 

In all that is true to humanity here — 

When chill winds have carried the blossoms away, 
In the heart, for my presence, O seek. 



PH^TIKl ©IF ©[1=3^K1[N1D[K1 



A wail in God's temple ! one pillar is broken, 
Which stood where the cherubim folded its wings, 



292 POEMS. 

And mnte is the high shrine, where solemn word 

spoken 
No more from the mouth of its oracle springs. 

Aw^ailin God's temple ! one harp string is sunder'd, 
"Whose music was deep as the mighty sea wave, 
In hymn and in prayer, or when wildly it thunder'd, 
The lightnings of truth, at the chains of the slave. 

A wail in God's temple ! one sentry has perished, 
Whose eye never turned from the light of its shrine. 
But forever knelt down, like a vestal, and cherish'd 
Deep, deep in his pure soul, the spirit divine. 

Wail, wail in God's temple ! a fearless true-hearted. 
Has passed from the dark, and less perfect away ; 
And left us in tears by the turf where he parted, 
To gaze on the path where he flashed for a day. 

Wail ! wail in God's temple ! the heart must have 

anguish. 
Weep, weep, let the tender tear spring on his sod ; 
Yet cease, it is wrong in our sadness to languish. 
The idol we mourn, is an angel of God. 



1LD(^1H1T 



Whence art thou, glorious light, 

With thy wild streakings ? Whence 

Thou conqueror of the mystic night, 

In garb inimitable ? Thou bright 

Installer of the morning, sa}^ 

Art thou from eastward ? for, from thence, 

Peeping with eye of silver grey. 

We see thee usher in the matchless day. 

Child of the emerald eye, 

In thy far home, long hidden 

To our keen gaze — from whence do fly 

Your splendid gleamings f Is yonder sky 

Your birth-place — or the stainless spring, 

From whence thou swift hast ridden 

On golden pinions, and dost fling 

The royal noon from thy own quivering wing ? 

Say, high visitant, whose brow 
Is gemmed with radiance — where 
16* 



194 POEMS. 

Is thy mother ? Are there more as thou, 

Children unrivalled ? Do they likewise bow 

Majestic down the yellow west, 

When evening veils their glory ? Are 

They only for the day hours drest — 

Or blent with stars upon the midnight's breast? 

A mighty minister, thou art ! 
Who shall unveil thy coming forth, 
Mysterious spirit ? Thou, whose dart 
Is the m.eridian's flashing ! start, 
Lightning-footed thought, and swift, away. 
Speed to the shootings up of yonder north ; 
See if she pauseth there to stay ! 
Search, fearless eye, where is her fountain, say r 

Ha ! ye ma}^ climb forever, still 

Rattle her chariot w^heels afar ; 

Catch from the sea her glance, or by the rill 

Scoop up her gleaming — she may fill 

The universe, but tell me who, 

Can say from whence her jewelled car 

Streaming with sun-clad coursers, through 

Yon topless arch, yon sky of matchless blue ! 



©©©-[F [||L[L©Wi[K]D[F 



Not in the halls of noise and mirth, 
Among the proud ones of the earth, 

She bends her ear — 
But to the fearful and distrest, 
The lowly, bonded, and opprest, 

She drops the tear. 

Not in that palace wide and high. 
Whose walls the scowls of want defy. 

Her feet are seen — 
But in yon dark and filthy lane, 
Where worth sits languishing in pain. 

She stoops, I ween. 

By that half glimmering fire, where drags 
Misfortune's self her load of rags, 

Besrrimmed with dust — 
Behold her soft and soothing hand, 
Through deeds of truth and love expand, 4pSk 

With mercy's trust. 



196 POEMS. 

The brow of wo is wrinkled less, 
And fainter wails forlorn distress 

Where'er she goes — 
And brighter beams the weeper's eye, 
'Mid city haunts, and deserts dry. 

Or mountain snows. 

Lo ! at her touch, Promethean fire ! 
Humanity is lifted higher 

From the cold sod ; 
And kindles with the native flame, 
It bore, when God-like first it came 

From nature's God. 



On ! be her quest, the good of man, 
Shall see her foremost in the van, 

For battle strong — 
And on her banner folds above, 
Shall triumph. Friendship, Truth, and Love, 

O'er human wrong ! 



MT iUOSiflET 



O come to the grave where the martyr lies lowly, 
O kneel by the turf where the young hero sleeps ; 
And over his ashes, time-hallowed and holy. 
Weep, weep, as in silence, the sad willow weeps ! 

Devotion's young child who for liberty perished, 
Down crushed to the earth by red tyranny's heel ; 
Whose name by the noble of nations is cherished, 
Let tears o'er his grave your deep grieving reveal. 

O stay where the star from its pathway was smitten, 
Proud Erin's serenest, though many hath she ; 
Though fallen — whose epitaph yet is unwritten, 
And shall be, till Erin, unshackled, is free ! 

Mourn, Isle, that is chafed by the heel of the billow. 
Your deepest soul vent over young Emmet's grave ; 
O wail, when the thunder storm maketh its pillow. 
And resteth its brow on the foam of the wave ! 

Mourn, desolate land, for your beauty is riven. 
Your pride and your strength on the altar is slain ; 



198 POEMS. 

But, ha ! o'er the dust that's so fearlessly striven, 
The millions he roused, for the struggle remain ! 

They will write on the pillar in letters of glory, 
His splendor, his sorrow, his death and his fame ; 
But alas ! deeper graven than letter or story, 
Each Irishman's heart bears the loved Emmet's 
name ! 

And thou gentle girl* who hast died of thy sorrow, 
Strike gladly your harp in the cherubic choir. 
The wreaths of your Emmet are finished to-morrow, 
To bloom on his brow like a halo of fire. 



©/^WM 



All hopeful things are prayed for as a dawn — 
The midnight which lie« pillowed on the world, 
Veiling, and yet, revealing the bright stars. 
Soothing the fever of the universe; 
Beautiful as it may be, to him, who sits 
Watching the dances of the fitful cloud, 

* Mary Curran. 



POEMS. 199 

Wailing his hapless love to the sweet moon, 

Or nursing suicide on some rude cliff 

Where hoots the owl above his reverie, 

Shall be chased forth, when comes to-morrow morn, 

Like a dim shadow fading into dawn. 



Q 



Error, which had its birth of ancient days, 
Hoary with the endorsement of wise men, 
Cradled in senates, and on temple shrines. 
In years, when oracles through lips of stone 
Fashioned the models of uprising states, 
And sanctified the nonsense of dull fools; 
Or which in later ages has sprung forth 
Marring the fairest fabrics of our time. 
Our faith, law, living, and philosophy ; 
All changes its rude face from day to day, 
Shaping its flight before truth's better dawn ! 

Earth had its dawn — Time had its dawn ! 
There sprang a race of gods in olden times, 
From the most fruitful brains of simple men, 
Gods worshiped — both of wood and stone, 
Around Olympus and the Delphic shrines ; 
Aye ! e'en the stars and elements were gods. 
Jove had his court in heaven — beneath the waves* 
Neptune, a chariot and four mermaids drove, 
Frighting the dwellers in his weedy caves — 



200 POEMS. 

And when strong armies to the battle went? 
They prayed to Mars or Jupiter for aid. 
Lo ! o'er their reign, wrought out from poesy, 
The one, Almighty, and Omniscient came, 
And in the splendor of His cloudless dawn, 
Crumbled the ages' deities. 

Death is a terrible thing — to sleep alone 

In the coarse gravel, where the ploughman's heel 

Tramps, as hereafter 'mong his ripened corn. 

Singing some ballad, he shall pluck the ears — 

And more, to him, who climbing up the Alps, 

Far from his kindred and his early home, 

Quivers beneath the rushing avalanche. 

And feels eternal winter on his breast ! 

Aye, terrible — if human love no more 

Plants its fair roses on our blushing lips. 

Nor lays its hand within our open palm. 

But, lo ! it is a sleep most beautiful, 

When on our dream eternal summer breaks. 

And life, full smiling on death's purple lids 

Lights in his eyes a fresh, immortal 3^outb, 

Kindling the resurrection of the world. 

And o'er deca}^ and sorrow, and grim night, 

Proclaims the dawning of perpetual day. 



^Q m 



Arise, Ocean Isle ! from the touch of the chain, 
Where for ages your spirit has slumbered in night, 
Arise from the bed where your martyrs were slain, 
And hurl back the yoke of oppression with might! 
Up, up, ye pale hosts from the field and thq flood, 
Let your voice rattle wild with the roar of the gale ; 
Arise, and the torch and the banner of blood. 
Wave over the land where your glory once stood. 
Till the tyrant confused in his fear shall grow pale. 

Where now is the fane at whose altar ye knelt. 
When the harp of the minstrel with triumph was 

strung — 
And the cot and the hearth where your fore-fathers 

dwelt, 
When freedom looked down on your vallies, where 

sprung 
The rose that is faded, the rose that is past — 
When ** Erin Mavourneen " rang wildly on high, 
And thy sons were as free as the wing of the blast ; 
17 



2G2 POEMS. 

And no chains on thy turf, by the tyrant were cast, 
In the gore of the brave, for thy torture to lie ! 

Where now is the wine-cup your heroes once prest' 
Which sparkled with light to the souls of the brave ? 
Quaffed, quaffed to the bottom by unbidden guest, 
The hero who held it in triumph, a slave ! 
Not a slave — for I swear to the tyrants who chain. 
That the bones of the sleeping in wrath shall arise, 
From the vallies where moulder the forms of the 

slain, 
And their spirits restore to old Erin again. 
The star of her freedom which gleams in the skies ! 

Up minstrel !* arouse with a spirit of fire. 
Thy harp on the willow no longer be hung ; 
Breathe wrath 'til oppression shall sink and expire, 
Then with ** Erin Mavourneen " its cords shall be 

strung — 
And thou, mighty spirit,t rush on with thy flood, 
Till its waves are as strong as the surge of the sea. 
And the whelps of the lion are whelmed in the 

blood 
They have spilt in the track where their iron feet 

trod, 
And the land of your fathers, proud Erin is {"lee ! 

• Tb&mas Moore. t Daniel O'Connell. 



POEMS. 203 

In your vallies the fiend his red wine-vat has made, 
Where the brave, and the true, and the lovely are 

pressed ; 
And low, where the dust of your fathers is laid, 
The heels of the tyrant disdainfully rest ! 
The ashes of martyrs are scornfully trod, 
The lips of your orators sealed by the chain ; 
For seven long centuries bound to the sod. 
Let your heroes arise, for their country and God, 
And restore unto Erin her glory again ! 



TD©©K][D)[EI^@©^.* 



The war storm is over, the thunders have passed 
From the land where the eagle spreads boldly his 

wing. 
And hushed is the trumpet whose soul-stirring blast^ 
Roused the freeman, his bolt at the tyrant to fling ; 
But the fields are yet fresh with the blood of the 

brave. 
And the fortress walls carry the searing of flame, 
Which has hallowed the turf o'er the patriot's grave, 

* To D. C. Pell, Esq. 



204 POEMS. 

Who, mocking the fetter, and scorning the slave, 
Gave his life to his country, his spirit to fame ! 

In the valleys afar the lude battlement rose. 
From the hills frowned the spirit of liberty down ; 
The smoke of the battle enveloped her foes. 
She tram [led the tyrant and shivered his crown ! 
The free banner shook its light folds to the gale, 
The stars and the stripes to the breeze were unfurled ; 
The fiends of oppression grew frighted and pale, 
They passed like a storm — and the voice of their 

wail, 
Was the triumph of freedom, the hope of the world. 

On the list of those places Immortal to song, 
There is not a prouder than that by the wave, 
Where the Lake of Champlain flows its waters along, 
And tosses its surge as a hymn to the brave ! 
The fortress where Allen, proud Allen awoke, 
The sound sleeping Briton unriscn from bed, 
And his sword o'er the walls of the battlement 

broke, 
Where since lowly smitten 'mid thunder and smoke, 
The soldier of freedom has pillowed his head ! 

The thousands of sleepers who lie in her dust, 
Have hallowed " Old Ti " to the pages of fame, 



POEMS. 205 

And she speaks from her ruin through ages of rust, 
As loud as she spoke in the tempest of flame ; 
And the heart of the freeman is thrilled when he sees 
Her half mouldered turrets loom up to the skies, 
Defying the touch of the storm and the breeze, 
And proudly he points the oppressor to these, 
And bids him remember the jjast, and be wise ! 



TU^ :B:/^TTlLl-iJil D [P 



Like a free bird that laughs at the tempests rude 

shock, 
She sits on the breast of the storm-cradled wave. 
Or springs to the battle, war's thunders to mock, 
Bearing death to the fearful, and fame to the brave ! 
She courts the black whirlwind, and drinks in the 

glance 
Of the fiery-browed lightnings, that hiss at the deep, 
And leaps to her carol, where white sui'ges dance, 
When the storm-god his harvest of navies would reap. 

Her wings, in defiance, are spread to the blast. 
As down in the white foam her haughty brow dips, 
17* 



206 POEMS. 

And her stern, awful challenge, to battle is cast 
From a hundred grim mouths, with their dark iron 

lips ! 
She breathes from her nostrils a broad sheet of 

flame, 
And striketh her keel on the crest of the tide ; 
And down, far away from the land whence they 

came. 
Sleep the hosts that swept on, and her passing 

defied ! 

There floats she ! the stars and the stripes at her 

head. 
The thunders, half muffled, lie pent in her breast ; 
As away, o'er the green mighty surges, her tread 
On the sheen of the wave is disdainfully prest — 
She speaks, and the nations shrink back from her 

tongue, 
As they shrink at the roar of the fire-mountain 

flame. 
And the dirge of the foemen who meet her, is rung, 
As she sweeps o'er their grave, bearing conquest to 

fame. 



¥ d ^ Iffl © M T 



Proud land of my birth ! thou art free as the blast, 
On whose bosom the grey forest eagle hath sprung, 
And down on the hills, and the valleys he passed, 
His glance like a shaft from the thunder-cloud flung ! 
Thou art happy and fair, thy sky-kissing hills. 
Where the hemlock and spruce ever nod to the 

breeze. 
Deep fire in the soul of the peasant instils, 
Who drinks of the gale, and the bright leaping rills 
That spring from the mountains, and pass to the 

seas. 

Noble land of my birth ! by the blood of the brave, 
Thou wert purged from oppression, and hallowed 

to fame ; 
Thy sons are as strong as the the forests that wave 
O'er the dust of the serfs, of the tyrant, who came 
With the tramp of the lion, to fetter our shore ; 
Thy daughters are fair as the roses that spring 
In the glens, where the boughs of the pine hover o'er, 



20S POEMS. 

Where the summer-bird's song, and the cataract's 

roar 
Their cadence far up on the fresh breezes fling ! 

Thy heroes are high on the annals of song, 
The Aliens, and Starks, who for freedom arose, 
And smote by the altar, oppression and wrong. 
Till the smoke of the battle had smothered their 

foes — 
And the sons who are left, should a tyrant come near. 
Will arise like the fathers, with banner and steel ; 
And thunder the music of death in his ear. 
Till his hosts 'neath the turf where they tread, dis- 
appear, 
Crushed low to the dust by the mountaineer's heel! 

O, long may thy stars be as proud as to-day, 
Thy sons be as strong, and thy daughters as fair ; 
And the shouts of the" free, from thy valleys away, 
Join the scream of the eagle, whose home is the air ! 
On thy snow-covered hills, where the evergreens 

wave, 
Which are cradled and reared by the storm and 

the blast, 
May liberty stoop o'er the last tyrant's grave, 
And break the last fetter that clings to the slave. 
While her hght o'er the earth in its splendor is cast ! 



Let them sing of the blue lakes that glisten afar, 
Made classic in story, and dear to romance ; 
Geneva, and Leman, and bright Windermere, 
Where the silver waves swift in the summer light 

dance — 
As fresh as their fairest, as proud as their best. 
Are the waves which bore incense to liberty's fane; 
Whether rocked by the tempest, or lying at rest, 
By the smooth keel of commerce, or war vessel 

prest. 
Our own chosen water, the Lake of Champlain ! 

Go search the Swiss valle3^s, or far to the south, 

Not one can ye find to the freeman so dear. 

As the lake which lies hemmed by the hills of the 

north. 
Whose islands are blooming, whose waters are clear ; 
For high o'er its bosom, in days that are past — 
The eagle glared down on the lion's red mane. 
Whose challenge thus bold o'er our waters was cast, 

* To Capt. R. Sherman. 



210 roEMS. 

And screamed in bis ear to the tune of the blast, 
And frightened bim farfromtbe Lake of Cbana plain! 

Aye, searcb for a fairer — but wbere will ye find 
A spot treasured nnore on tbe pages of fame, 
Tban the lake where M'Donougb drove tyranny 

back, 
And conquered old Downie 'mid thunder and flame? 
The earth has none prouder, more dear to the soul 
Of the freeman, who kneels by his blood-purchased 

fane. 
Than thou, who upbore him to liberty's goal 
'Mid llie storm, and ihe namage of battle, whose roll 
Has christened thee sacied, dear Lake of Champlain. 



©®iLy [MiiiQ/a'i [fqki 



The Pines of old Scotia may wrest with the gale. 
When tempests their lightnings have flung fiom the 

cloud, 
When the fire-footed storms in the summer -sky sail 
Like giants to battle, undaunted, unbowed ! 



POEMS. 211 

As high o'er our hills with their lofty brows shine, ' 
The evergreen heads of Columbia's Pine ! 

Ayej^ prouder ! far prouder, for free'er the land, 
Over which thy strong arms like a banner are flung, 
Unmatched and unrivalled, eternal they stand. 
And strive with the storms from the crags where 

they sprung ; 
Nor reck they, w^hen tempests, or lightnings incline, 
But ring out their challenge, those forests of Pine ! 

Go gaze where earth's pillars have shot to the skies, 
Where the fierce eagle screams to the storm and 

the blast. 
From their tops like rude heralds serenely they rise, 
And their shadows far down on the valley are cast, 
O'er the spring and the torrent, the leaf and the 

vine, 
Spread the strong royal arms of Columbia's Pine. 

Green ! green may it wave, from the rock-bosom'd 

hill. 
Forever lift up its broad arms to the cloud; 
And mock at the blasts as they whistle by shrill, 
All firm in their places, unrivalled, unbowed. 
As proud as their kindred, o'er Scotia's hills shine, 
The pride of the free souls, Columbia's Pine I 



LOWILY [FL^© 



Tis not in the lowly places 

Vice alone has trotle elate, 

Lo, sbe walks in gilded slippers 

'Mong the dwellings of the great ; 

Noble lords, and noble princes, 

Old and holy n^en of note, 

These have worn her robes of crimson, 

Pressed her many colored coat ! 

All the wicked deeds of tyrants, 
Splendid villanies of time ; 
Mitred priests, and bannered heroes. 
Wrought by their own will for crime ! 
Let them not upon the lowly, 
Whom they chain and sore oppress, 
Strive to fix the seal of guilty. 
While they wear the culprit's dress. 

Long, the field was wide and ample, 
Long, have struggled on, the low ; 



POEMS. 



213 



Longer, tyrants may not trample 
On the peasant's sweaty brow — 
From the heart, and from the spirit, 
Which hath beat so long in vain, 
Springs the Titan they inherit, 
Manhood, manhood breaks the chain ! 

'Neath the peasant's vest, a bosom 
Fired with freedom's love appears. 
While the king with all his glitter 
Sits a slave among his peers — 
Think not men are great or noble 
On account of robes they wear; 
Titles, worthy righteous spirits, 
Fall to many a villian's share ! 

Think not, in the lanes and garrets 
Vice hath crept with fearful mien. 
Real guilt is in the palace, 
Though its walls the actors screen — 
When ye fight your fearful battles, 
When ye strike for old renown. 
Then, the lowly are your marrow, 
Nerve and sinew to the crown ! 

When the tug of strife is over, 
And the spoils are heaped away ; 
18 



2J^ POEMS. 

Lo ! ye paupers who are squalid, 
Seek the lanes ye left to-day ! 
By the shades of all the mighty, 
Ye, who sit in gilded place, 
Hurl not scorn upon the lowly, 
Though their path in rags they trace. 

It is ye who thus have made them, 
As your warriors, and youi slaves ; 
Ye yourselves in rags arrayed them, 
And would hunt them to their graves- — 
But with all your fiendish clamor, 
Say not, vice, the alley holds, 
Ye, who, in the high-reared dwellings. 
Live and fester in its folds ! 



Y [K]iaT0\v7[i i^ihm© 



Though brighter beams may gild the shore 

Where Sarum's ruined castles rise. 

And fairer splendors hover o'er 

Italia from the drooping skies ; 

No clime hath more of loved or grand, 

Than our own dear, and native land I 



POEMS. 215 

Beyond the sea, the leaping vine 
May cling to fane, and fortress grey, 
And clustering? shade tiie olden shrine 
Which now is mouldering to decay ; 
O'er these, the hills and altars stand, 
That crown and bless my native land ! 

Howe'er I love the southern sky, 

The hallowed clime where music sprung — 

Though on my ear may never die 

The strain's its god-like bards have sung ; 

They melt away that glorious band, 

Before my own, my native land ! 

God bless her soil, God bless her breeze, 
The springs that lave each mountain's brow, 
The hills, the vales, the waving trees. 
And keep them fresh and fair as now ; 
Nor let one chain, or tyrant's hand 
Profane my own, my native land ! 



K10K1QT©K1 ^LILiTr©IK] 



Hush ! from the sky another star has gone, 
Another spirit passed beyond the goal ; 
Another glorious and immortal soul 
Flashed to the radiance of eternal dawn — 
A darkness in our firmament, on high, 
A loftier splendor in the upper sky ! 

The hand is palsied, at whose mighty spell, 
The canvass glowed with images divine ; 
Whose pencil bade the face of nature shine, 
E'en till the curtain of the angel fell. 
And from his eyes of all their lustre shorn, 
Shut out the glory of the purple morn. 

A string is loosened from the coral lyre. 

By hands celestial for our spirits strung; 

From whence the loftiest of our notes have sprung, 

And kindled deep a wild extatic fire — 

And sad our souls amid the livino^ throno-s, 

For mute the voice that peopled them with songs. 

Poet, and Painter ! from our midst struck down 
To spurn the dust, and like a Phoenix rise, 






POEMS. 217 

Transcendent to thy throne amid the skies, 
Upon ihy brow the laurel and the crown : 
Thy foinn has bended to the will of late, 
But all is left that makes it consecrate. 

• 

No portion of the genius-spirit dies, 

Thy song sliali triumph from the flight of j^ear?, 

Thy canvass blushing through its charms appears, 

By far more glorious to our ravished eyes, 

And from their splendor and their fame, may we, 

Behold their master and their fire in thee 1 



mi^M 



The glory of man ! like a gush of the breeze 
That leaps from the thunder-cloud strong, 
And lifts up the limbs and the leaves of the trees, 
And dies as it passes along : • 

Like the wrath of the surge as it breaks on the shore, 
Provoked by the wing of the blast. 
To melt as it dashes the rock with a roar, 
And forever and ever be passed ! 
IS* 



218 POEMS. 

The fame of a man ! like the dew on the turf, 

Which a glance of the sun has consumed, 

Like a dream, or the spray on the brow of a surf, 

Or the flash of a swift eagle's plume : 

An echo forgot e'er it came to the ear, 

A presence which never was felt ; 

A shrine with the footsteps of worshipers near, 

But lost, e'er they found it and knelt ! 

The strength of a man ! like a feather sent out 

To fetter the storm-spirit's feet, 

A leaf in the arms of the hurricane stout, 

A snail on the lightning's back fleet — 

A mote to be lost in the folds of the grass, 

A sigh in the ear of the gale ; 

A drop in the ocean to quiver and pass. 

No echo to whisper the tale ! 

The hope of a man ! 'tis as high as the stars. 

As deep as the fathomless space ; 

As strong as the earthquake that breaketh its bars. 

And swift as the light in its race : 

The glory and fame, and the strength shall decay, 

But the hope of the spirit is sure ; 

And fresh when the sun and the stars fade away. 

Will forever and ever endure ! 



TMH [F©[ET'i [D)[E/?\T[K1 



They make the Poet's couch, at last, 
A bed of bridal flowers, 
Where he must wed himself to death 
By slow and lingering hours ; 
O bid adieu, O bid adieu, 
Thou soul of sweetest song, 
Hang up thy lyre of broken string, 
And join the passing throng. 

Yes, he must go ! his lips are white, 
His brow is pale and cold. 
The heart beats low and fitfulty 
Which thrilled us so of old ; 
O gaze around, O gaze around, 
Before the hour is past. 
Upon the face of loving friends 
Thy parting glances cast. 

Another morn is not for thee 
Thou glorious spirit-child, 
So gaze upon the full robed sun 
Which unto thee hath smiled ; 



220 POEMS. 

In many a day> when far away 
From sorrow and from care, 
Thy lips have touched the spring of life 
In childhood's valleys fair. 

O gaze upon the earth around 

Which thou hast loved so well, 

For silently 'tis passing back, 

And broken soon the spell; 

O smell the rose, the fragiant rose. 

Thou gathered'st long ago, 

Which soon shall veil its blushing face, 

And o'er thy ashes grow. 

Remember thou the summer-cloud 

Which rode upon the breeze, 

Inspiring early dreams of thine : 

And how the leafy trees, 

Like angels, seemed to clap their hands, 

And whisper unto thee, 

" O gentle heart cast off thy bonds 

And like the wind be free ?" 

Look on that cloud, and on the trees, 
And bid them all adieu. 
For they shall smile to-morrow morn 
When thou with life art through ; 



p 



POEMS. 221 

O bid them wave, and drop a tear 
For friendship's sake to thee, 
Who art beneath them sleeping low, 
And cold, and silently ; 



And 'tis the last of evening skies 

To glimmer on thy gaze. 

Behold the brightly pencilled stars 

Which on its bosom blaze ; 

When thou art low to-morrow eve, 

Upon that turf of thine, 

Shall they with eyes that speak of love 

To bless thy slumber shine. 

How darkly droops the veil of death. 

Thou see'st no more the day. 

But vaguely round thee shadows flit 

To bear thy soul away ; 

The golden land of which thou sang 

With all a Poet's fire, 

Will soon be thine, if thine at all. 

Thou genius of the lyre. 

The vision is a glorious one. 
The heaven looks fair and bright — 
And yet 'tis hard to pass away, 
To leave the day for night ; 



■ir 



222 



POEMS 



To be the sport of still decay, 
And in the winter tomb 
To feel the worms, at riot-play 
Our shell of life consume. 

O, bitter is the passing hour. 

Though smiling round thy bed. 

The eyes of beauty cheer thee on 

To paths with roses spread ; 

The chill that sits upon thy soul 

They cannot drive away. 

Nor cheat thee with their flowers, to think 

It is thy bridal-day. 

'Tis but a moment's struggle — thou 
Art loosed, and free at last, 
And from the fire that kindled thee 
Forever, ever passed ! 
O mournfully, O mournfully. 
The night wind overhead. 
Breathes softly to the ears of men, 
The child of song is dead. 



oi/?\©®[H 



Devotion's child is Isadore, 
With sunny curl and placid eye ; 
A worshiper beneath the sky, 
To-day, henceforth, and evermore ! 
O, I would love to kneel with her. 
To bow before the pleasant shrine. 
Where she has plead with love divine, 
That sweet and holy worshiper. 

No stain of earth upon her brow. 
The trusting, meek, and gentle one ; 
No deed her hand has ever done 
Which asks for her repentance now — 
For love alone she fondly kneels. 
And lifts to heaven those quiet eyes. 
Which blend their azure with the skies, 
As night around her forehead steals. 

And fain would think my heart beguiled, 
That she was born of holier sphere; 
A dreamy angel lingering here, 
That fond, and fair, and glorious child. 
O when there comes a sadness o'er 
This grieved and aching heart of mine, 
I'll turn to thee, sweet child divine, 
And kneel, and pray with Isadore. 






TMl Kfl 



One eve, as I sat where my Lelia was weeping, 
I leaned on her bosom the hour to beguile ; 
When the little god cupid awoke from his sleeping, 
And wreathed on the brow of the maiden a smile. 

With wonder I gazed on this change of her sorrow, 
And wildly my soul drank the vision of bliss, 
As I breathed in her ear, O permit me to borrow 
A rose from thy cheek for my fancy to kiss. 

Then fondly she smiled, and her silence consented, 
While trembling with phrenzy, 1 culled them all o'er, 
And e'er for the loan of her cheek she repented, 
I grasped at its blushes, and gathered one more. 

O cruel ! she cried, thus to rob me of beauty, 
When I had so freely just given to you ; 
Forgive me ! I echoed, love stoops not to duty, 
She smiled me a pardon, I bid her adieu ! 



Wis 








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